Linguistics An Essential Introduction (Version 1.5)

Consider the following words, all of which contain the affix {/-əbl/} ‑able/‑ible:

The cases in (1a) all conform to our expectation: if we remove the affix, we are left with free roots — the verbs /​ˈkaʊnt/ count, /​kənˈvɝːt/ convert, /ˈmɛ.ʒɚ/ measure, /​pɚˈfɛkt/ perfect, /​ˈpɹɑː.fɪt/ profit and reverse. These can be used, for example, to paraphrase the adjectives:

The cases in (1b) are different: if we remove the affix, we are left with the roots /ˈɑːd/ aud‑, /​ˈkæl.kjəl/ calcul‑, /​ˈɛ.lədʒ/ elig‑, /​ˈmɛ.mɚ/ memor‑, /​ˈnuː.mɚ/ numer‑, /​ˈtɛ.ɹ] terr‑ and /​ˈtɑː.lɚ/ toler‑. These are not free morphemes — we cannot use them by themselves:

But although aud‑, calcul‑, memor‑, terr‑ and toler‑ are not free morphemes, they are clearly roots. For one thing, they also occur with other affixes: both aud‑ and toler‑ occur, for example, with {‑/əns/} ‑ence/‑ance (in audience and tolerance); both toler‑ and calcul‑ occur with {‑/eɪt/} ‑ate (in tolerate and calculate); calcul‑ occurs with {‑/əs/} ‑us in calculus; memor‑ with {‑/aɪz/} ‑ize in memorize and with {‑/i/} ‑y in memory; numer‑ occurs with {‑/əl/} ‑al in numeral and {‑/əs/} ‑ous in numerous, and terr‑ with {‑/əɹ/} ‑or in terror and {‑/ə.faɪ/} ‑ify in terrify.

In all cases, the root contributes a fairly consistent meaning that we can identify by subtracting the meaning of the suffix from the word: audible means ‘able to be heard’, auditory means ‘by means of hearing’, audience means ‘those who hear something’ (at least that is its original meaning — it now also refers to a group of people perceiving something via other senses), so aud‑ means something like ‘hear’. Likewise, calculable means ‘able to be assessed in terms of numbers’, calculate means ‘to assess in terms of numbers’, calculus refers to a branch of mathematics, so calcul‑ means something like ‘count’.

So, they are roots, but they are not free morphemes. In other words: they are bound roots.

There are even cases of bound complex bases — combinations of a root and an affix that cannot be used without an additional affix. Consider the following words, which, again, all contain the affix {/-əbl/} ‑able/‑ible:

At first glance, these words are all derived from adjectives containing the suffix ‑able by prefixing them with the negative preffix {/ɪn/‑} in‑. For the cases in (6a), this is indeed the case: inaudible is derived from audible, intolerable is derived from tolerable.

For the words in (6b), it is not true. The words introuvable ‘impossible to find’ and intransnatable ‘impossible to swim across’ occur in Present-Day English (even though they are very rare). However, the hypothetical words *trouvable and *transnatable, from which they seem to be derived, do not occur and have never been documented in the entire history of English. In other words, intransnat– and introuv– are bound complex bases. The words introuvable and intransnatable were borrowed into English from French and Latin respectively, but their bases trouvable and transnatable were not.

A special case of bound roots are unique roots, sometimes referred to as “cranberry morphemes”, based on the first part of the word /ˈkræn.beɹ.i/ cranberry — the second part is clearly recognizable as the word /ˈbɛɹ.i/ berry, which occurs by itself, but also in compounds like /ˈbluːˌbɛɹ.i/ blueberry, /ˈstrɑːˌbɛɹ.i/ strawberry or /ˈblæk.bɛɹ.i/ blackberry. In all those cases, the first part of the compound can also occur by itself: blue, straw, black, but in the case of cranberry, this is not the case: *cran. The base /ˈkræn/ cran occurs only in the single word cranberry — it is unique to that word.

Unique roots are rare — a number of them are found in the names of berries, e.g., mulberry, boysenberry, raspberry. Other examples are luke‑ in lukewarm, hinter‑ in hinterland, twi‑ in twilight, and elig‑ in eligible. Unique roots typically come about in two ways: first, borrowing, and second, language change. An example of borrowing is the unique root hinter‑: when the word Hinterland ‘back country’ was borrowed from German into English, speakers of English recognized the word land and treated the entire word as as a compound based on words with a similar structure, such as homeland, mainland, highland, farmland, heartland and woodland, with hinter‑ becoming a unique root carrying the meaning that distinguishes the word hinterland from other types of land. An example of language change is the unique root luke‑ in lukewarm. Luke was a free morpheme in Middle English, where it meant ‘of average temperature’ or ‘without much feeling or enthusiasm’. It has since disappeared from the language, except as part of the compound lukewarm.

CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0. Written by Anatol Stefanowitsch