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Re: stem or root?

Subject: Re: stem or root?
From: "Peter T. Daniels"
Date: 29 Aug 2006 11:56:07 -0700
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Nathan Sanders wrote:
> In article <4lj1vkF258ckU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>  Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > > In your example, "Wag" would be the root (and perhaps a zero-derived
> > > stem, if inflectional affixes can be added to it alone), while "Wagen"
> > > is a stem.
> >
> > But "en" in "Wagen" isn't an affix. The fact that it reduces to "n" in
> > "Wagner" isn't different from the "y" in "city" changing to "ie" in
> > "cities", and the "y" certainly isn't an affix.
>
> Oops, sorry, I completely misunderstood your example.  In that case,
> "Wag(e)n" is both a root and a suffix.  "Wag" is nothing, unless is
> appears in another word without "(e)n".

Both a root and a stem.

You've left "base" out!


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