Definition and Examples of Base Forms of Words

Definition and Examples of Base Forms of Words In English language, a base is the type of a word to which prefixes and suffixesâ can be added to make new words. For instance, train is the base for shaping 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. Agreeing to Ingo Plag, The term root is utilized when we need to explicitlyâ refer to the inseparable focal piece of an intricate word. In every other case, where the status of a structure as indissoluble or not will be not an issue, we can simply discuss bases (or, if the base is a word, base words) (Word-Formation in English, 2003). Models and Observations By and large, 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 mind boggling 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 portraying what the word is being utilized to mean in a given articulation. The prefix and postfix add semantic substance to that center, the prefix re including the substance once more, and the addition 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 despondent the base structure is upbeat; on the off chance that - ness is, at that point added to troubled, the entire of this thing would be viewed as the base to which the new fasten is joined. A few examiners, in any case, confine the term base to be identical to root, the piece of a word remaining when the sum total of what joins have been evacuated. In such a methodology, glad would be the base structure (the most noteworthy normal factor) of every one of its inductions joy, miserable, misery, and so on. This significance prompts a unique use in prosodic morphology to characterize the segment 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 awful, the base structure is the purported outright structure (as against the relative structure more terrible, or the standout structure most exceedingly awful). 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 syntactic variations (sings, singing, sang, sung). (Howard Jackson, Words and Their Meaning. Routledge, 2013) Bases in Complex Words Another exemplary issue of morphology [is] the instance of a mind boggling word with a conspicuous addition or prefix, connected to a base that isn't a current expression of the language. For instance, among the - capable words will be words, for example, flexible and attainable. In the two cases the postfix - capable (spelled - ible in the second case in view of an alternate verifiable root for the addition) has the normal importance be capable, and in the two cases the - ity structure is conceivable (mealleability and possibility). We have no motivation to presume that capable/ible here isn't the genuine addition - capable. However on the off chance that it is, at that point pliable must be separated as malle capable and achievable as feas ible; yet there are no current words (free morphemes) in English, for example, malle or feas, or even malley or fease. We along these lines need to take into account the presence of a perplexing word whose base exists just in that mind boggling w ord . . .. (A. Akmajian, R. A. Demers, A. K. Rancher, R. M. Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. MIT, 2001)