`stem'

[Larry Trask]

On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>>[ Moderator's comment:
>>  I think you might want to review what a stem is:  The stem is whatever is
>>  left after the grammatical ending is removed.  This may be a root form, or
>>  an extended root (which *in some traditions* is called a stem).  I would
>>  reserve the term "root" for the CVC items described best by Benveniste in
>>  _Origines_.
>>  --rma ]

> Well, I understand your position. I was relying on Trask's definition on
> page 259 of his _ A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguitsics_:

> "stem. . . In morphology, a bound form of a lexical item which typically
> consists of a root to which one or more morphological formatives have been
> added and which serves as the immediate base for the formation of some
> further form or set of forms."

But, for IE languages, my definition is largely equivalent to the one
above.  Generally speaking, in IE languages, things work like this:

	root (the minimal form of a lexical morpheme)

	root + formative = stem (to which inflectional endings are
		added)

	stem + inflectional ending = word-form

Of course, even in IE languages, not every word-form is constructed in
exactly this manner.  For example, there may be more than one formative
present.  And, outside of IE, the facts may be rather different.  All
this has led to some variation in the use of terms like `root', `stem',
`theme' and `base'.

In my dictionary, I was not speaking specifically of the IE tradition,
but rather I was trying to cater to a wider tradition, and not all
linguists use the term `stem' in the rather strict IE sense.  I myself
would prefer it if we all did use these terms identically, but that's
not the way things are.

I agree, though, that my definition could have been a little more
explicit in recognizing competing usages, and I'll try to attend to that
in the second edition, when that happens.  Thanks for drawing my
attention to it.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk