Definition and Examples of Base Forms of Words

Definition and Examples of Base Forms of Words In English language structure, a base is the type of a word to which prefixes and suffixesâ can be added to make new words. For instance, educate is the base for framing guidance, teacher, and reinstruct. Likewise called a root or stem. Put another way, base structures are words that are not gotten from or comprised of different words. Concurring to Ingo Plag, The term root is utilized when we need to explicitlyâ refer to the unified focal piece of an unpredictable word. In every single other case, where the status of a structure as resolute or not will be not an issue, we can simply talk about bases (or, if the base is a word, base words) (Word-Formation in English, 2003). Models and Observations Much of the time, the client of English has no issue at all perceiving prefixes, bases, and additions. For example, in the sentence, They repainted the old vehicle, the unpredictable word repainted clearly has three elementsa prefix, a base, and an addition: re paint ed. The base paint is the words semantic center, the beginning spot for depicting what the word is being utilized to mean in a given articulation. The prefix and addition add semantic substance to that center, the prefix re including the substance once more, and the postfix ed including the past. (D. W. Cummings, American English Spelling. JHU Press, 1988) Base Forms and Word Roots [The term base] alludes to any piece of a word seen as a unit to which an activity can be applied, as when one adds an append to a root or stem. For instance, in troubled the base structure is glad; on the off chance that - ness is, at that point added to despondent, the entire of this thing would be viewed as the base to which the new join is connected. A few examiners, be that as it may, limit the term base to be proportionate to root, the piece of a word remaining when the sum total of what joins have been evacuated. In such a methodology, cheerful would be the base structure (the most elevated basic factor) of every one of its inferences bliss, troubled, despondency, and so on. This importance prompts a unique use in prosodic morphology to characterize the bit of the yield in correspondence with another segment of the structure, particularly the reduplicant. (David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, sixth ed. Blackwell, 2008) Reference Forms For descriptive words, for example terrible, the base structure is the alleged outright structure (as against the near structure more awful, or the standout structure most noticeably terrible). For other word classes, for example intensifier or relational word, where there are no syntactic variations, there is just one structure that can be the headword. These base types of words, the headwords of word reference sections, might be named the reference types of lexemes. At the point when we need to discuss the lexeme sing, at that point the structure that we refer to (for example quote) is the base formas I have simply doneand that is taken to incorporate all the linguistic variations (sings, singing, sang, sung). (Howard Jackson, Words and Their Meaning. Routledge, 2013) Bases in Complex Words Another great issue of morphology [is] the instance of a mind boggling word with a conspicuous addition or prefix, appended to a base that isn't a current expression of the language. For instance, among the - capable words will be words, for example, moldable and achievable. In the two cases the postfix - capable (spelled - ible in the second case in view of an alternate verifiable birthplace for the addition) has the ordinary significance be capable, and in the two cases the - ity structure is conceivable (mealleability and attainability). We have no motivation to speculate that capable/ible here isn't the genuine postfix - capable. However on the off chance that it is, at that point moldable must be separated as malle capable and attainable as feas ible; yet there are no current words (free morphemes) in English, for example, malle or feas, or even malley or fease. We consequently need to take into account the presence of an unpredictable word whose base exists just in that mind bo ggling word . . .. (A. Akmajian, R. A. Demers, A. K. Rancher, R. M. Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. MIT, 2001)