General linguistic terminology (bound morph(eme))

[Geoff Nathan]

At 10:43 AM 5/27/2004, you wrote:
>I can't think of an example of a "root" such as
>"gruntle" or "emptive" being called something other than a back-
>formation (as Larry suggested).
The process whereby some of these are formed is indeed 'back-formation'
(although not all of them derive etymologically from that source--unkempt,
for example, being etymologically related to 'comb') but a commonly used
term for what they are is 'bound root'.  This term is found, for example,
in the file on morphological processes in _Language Files_ (which I just
taught this past semester so it springs to mind).

Geoff