"Root word" and "etymon" redirect here. For root words in Indo-European languages, seeProto-Indo-European root word. For the study of word origins, seeEtymology.
Aroot (also known as aroot word orradical) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements.[1] Inmorphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which aprefix or asuffix can attach.[2][3] The root word is the primarylexical unit of aword, and of aword family (this root is then called the base word), which carries aspects ofsemantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.Content words in nearly alllanguages contain, and may consist only of, rootmorphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word without itsinflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example,chatters has the inflectional root orlemmachatter, but the lexical rootchat. Inflectional roots are often calledstems. A root, or aroot morpheme, in the stricter sense, is a mono-morphemic stem. Anetymon is the root word in aproto-language from which the descendant forms arose.
The traditional definition allows roots to be eitherfree morphemes orbound morphemes. Root morphemes are the building blocks foraffixation andcompounds. However, inpolysynthetic languages with very high levels of inflectional morphology, the term "root" is generally synonymous with "free morpheme". Many languages have a very restricted number of morphemes that can stand alone as a word:Yup'ik, for instance, has no more than two thousand.
Roots are sometimes notated using theradical symbol⟨√⟩ to avoid potential conflation with other objects of analysis with similar spellings or pronunciation:[4] for instance,√bhū- specifically denotes theSanskrit rootbhū-.
English verb formrunning contains the rootrun. The Spanish superlative adjectiveamplísimo contains the rootampli-. In the former case, the root can occur on its own freely. In the latter, modification via affixation is required to be used as a free form. English has minimal use of morphological strategies such as affixation and features a tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. However, such forms as in Spanish exist in English such asinterrupt, which may arguably contain the root-rupt, which only appears in other related prefixed forms (such asdisrupt,corrupt,rupture, etc.). The form-rupt cannot occur on its own.
Examples ofconsonantal roots, which are related but distinct to the concept developed here, are formed prototypically by three (as few as two and as many as five) consonants. Speakers may derive and develop new words (morphosyntactically distinct, i.e. with different parts of speech) by using non-concatenative morphological strategies: inserting differentvowels. Unlike 'root' here, these cannot occur on their own without modification; as such these are never actually observed in speech and may be termed 'abstract'. For example, inHebrew, the forms derived from the abstractconsonantal roots, a major Hebrew phonetics concept ג-ד-ל (g-d-l) related to ideas of largeness:gadol andgdola (masculine and feminine forms of the adjective "big"),gadal "he grew",higdil "he magnified" andmagdelet "magnifier", along with many other words such asgodel "size" andmigdal "tower".
Secondary roots are roots with changes in them, producing a new word with a slightly different meaning. In English, a rough equivalent would be to see aconductor as a secondary root formed from the rootto conduct. Inabjad languages, the most familiar areArabic andHebrew, in which families of secondary roots are fundamental to the language, secondary roots are created by changes in the roots' vowels, by adding or removing the long vowelsa,i,u,e ando. (Notice that Arabic does not have the vowelse ando.) In addition, secondary roots can be created by prefixing (m−,t−), infixing (−t−), or suffixing (−i, and several others). There is no rule in these languages on how many secondary roots can be derived from a single root; some roots have few, but others have many, not all of which are necessarily in current use.
مركز [mrkz] or [markaza] meaning 'centralized (masculine, singular)', from [markaz] 'centre', from [rakaza] 'plant into the earth, stick up (a lance)' ( ر-ك-ز | r-k-z). This in turn has derived wordsمركزي [markaziy], meaning 'central',مركزية [markaziy:ah], meaning 'centralism' or 'centralization', andلامركزية, [la:markaziy:ah] 'decentralization'.[6]
أرجح [rjh] or [ta'arjaħa] meaning 'oscillated (masculine, singular)', from ['urju:ħa] 'swing (n)', from [rajaħa] 'weighed down, preponderated (masculine, singular)' ( ر-ج-ح | r-j-ħ).
محور [mhwr] or [tamaħwara] meaning 'centred, focused (masculine, singular)', from [mihwar] meaning 'axis', from [ħa:ra] 'turned (masculine, singular)' (ح-و-ر | h-w-r).
مسخر [msxr], تمسخر [tamasxara] meaning 'mocked, made fun (masculine, singular)', from مسخرة [masxara] meaning 'mockery', from سخر [saxira] 'mocked (masculine, singular)' (derived from س-خ-ر[s-x-r])."[7] Similar cases may be found in otherSemitic languages such asHebrew,Syriac,Aramaic,Maltese language and to a lesser extentAmharic.
Similar cases occur inHebrew, for exampleIsraeli Hebrewמ-ק-מ √m-q-m 'locate', which derives fromBiblical Hebrewמקוםmåqom 'place', whose root isק-ו-מ √q-w-m 'stand'. A recent example introduced by theAcademy of the Hebrew Language isמדרוגmidrúg 'rating', fromמדרגmidrág, whose root isד-ר-ג √d-r-g 'grade'."[7]
According toGhil'ad Zuckermann, "this process is morphologically similar to the production offrequentative (iterative) verbs inLatin, for example:
iactito 'to toss about' derives fromiacto 'to boast of, keep bringing up, harass, disturb, throw, cast, fling away', which in turn derives fromiacio 'to throw, cast' (from its past participleiactum).[7]
Consider alsoRabbinic Hebrewת-ר-מ √t-r-m 'donate, contribute' (Mishnah: T'rumoth 1:2: 'separate priestly dues'), which derives from Biblical Hebrewתרומהt'rūmå 'contribution', whose root isר-ו-מ √r-w-m 'raise'; cf. Rabbinic Hebrewת-ר-ע √t-r-' 'sound the trumpet, blow the horn', from Biblical Hebrewתרועהt'rū'å 'shout, cry, loud sound, trumpet-call', in turn fromר-ו-ע √r-w-'."[7]and it describes the suffix.
Decompositional generative frameworks suggest that roots hold little grammatical information and can be considered "category-neutral".[8] Category-neutral roots are roots without any inherent lexical category but with some conceptual content that becomes evident depending on the syntactic environment.[8] The ways in which these roots gain lexical category are discussed inDistributed Morphology and theExoskeletal Model.
Theories adopting a category-neutral approach have not, as of 2020, reached a consensus about whether these roots contain a semantic type but no argument structure,[9] neither semantic type nor argument structure,[10] or both semantic type and argument structure.[11]
In support of the category-neutral approach, data fromEnglish indicates that the same underlying root appears as a noun and a verb - with or without overt morphology.[8]
InHebrew, the majority of roots consist of segmental consonants √CCC. Arad (2003) describes that the consonantal root is turned into a word due to pattern morphology. Thereby, the root is turned into a verb when put into a verbal environment where the head bears the "v" feature (the pattern).[12]
Although all words vary semantically, the general meaning of a greasy, fatty material can be attributed to the root.
Furthermore, Arad states that there are two types of languages in terms of root interpretation. In languages like English, the root is assigned one interpretation whereas in languages like Hebrew, the root can form multiple interpretations depending on its environment. This occurrence suggests a difference inlanguage acquisition between these two languages. English speakers would need to learn two roots in order to understand two different words whereas Hebrew speakers would learn one root for two or more words.[12]
Root comparison betweenEnglish andHebrew (adapted from "Syntactic Categorization of Roots"[8])
English Root
English Word
Hebrew Root
Hebrew Word
Gloss
√CREAM
cream
√š-m-n ש-מ-נ
šamenet
'cream'
√FAT
fat
šuman (n), šamen (adj)
'fat'
Alexiadou and Lohndal (2017) advance the claim that languages have a typological scale when it comes to roots and their meanings and state that Greek lies in between Hebrew and English.[13]
^Bisang, Walter (2023). "Levels of Analysis and Word Classes (Root, Stem, Word)". In van Lier, Eva (ed.).The Oxford Handbook of Word Classes. Oxford University Press. p. 67, n. 35.ISBN978-0-19-259436-5.CitesPesetsky, David Michael (1995).Zero Syntax. MIT Press. p. 70.ISBN978-0-262-16145-9.
^Compare:Durkin, Philip (2009). "8: Semantic change".The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 2011). p. xciv.ISBN9780191618789. Retrieved2017-11-10.In etymological reconstruction at the level of proto-languages, it is customary to reconstruct roots, which are assigned glosses, reflecting what is taken to be the common meaning shown by the words derived from this root.
^abcArad, Maya (2003). "Locality Constraints on the Interpretation of Roots: The Case of Hebrew Denominal Verbs".Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.21 (4):737–778.doi:10.1023/A:1025533719905.S2CID35715020.
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