bound roots

[Barbara Zurer Pearson]

Dear Carolyn (and Carson),

For me, the operative phrase in your question is
"Language for Teachers."  I am quite content when
the teachers in such a class can use exactly the
test you apply here:  "a 'mother' is not one who
moths" --whereas "a 'batter' can be one who bats."

I don't expect them to know (as I don't without
looking) whether "batter" also has something to
do with being beaten (as in for a cake).  I would
expect them to recognize "un" and its allomorphs,
even for this whole stock of words that are only
used in their negative version. (I hope someone
will send you the reference for the New Yorker
essay of probably 12 or more years ago which is
built entirely around the positives of them--
as in "she was very kempt" and probably also
"couth" but I don't remember.)

I also expect the teacher-students to be aware
of stem changes like what I presume (but don't
know for sure) takes "apt" to "ept."
Of course, your students won't know those
unless they actually know the meanings of some
words.  When they don't know the meanings, (and
I don't expect them to know all meanings), I
expect them to be willing to use a dictionary
and be able to show their students where such
information is to be had in the dictionary, if
it is relevant to know the compositional status of
the word.

Btw, this topic also brings you into the territory
of that other vexed question of what is a single word.
You will probably have to break it to them that
there is yet another gray area.  This list is probably
one of the few groups where I could reveal that I
wrote a research paper on the hyphen in my History
of the English Language course without being
deemed entirely weird.  I didn't find a hard and
fast rule for that either, as you transcribers
well know.

Cheers,

Barbara



On Nov 11, 2004, at 6:49 PM, Carolyn Chaney wrote:

> In my Language for Teachers class we were discussing various kinds of
> morphemes, and we discovered that we had difficulty knowing if certain
> words were free morphemes or a combo of an affix plus a bound root.
> This
> was particularly difficult when the word has a syllable that looks
> like am
> affix, such as mothER or DEcide.  Cases where there are several like
> words
> (receive, deceive, conceive) look like bound roots.  Mother seems
> clearly
> to be a free morpheme, as a mother is not one who moths.  But what
> about
> decide?  inept?  nonchalant?  uncouth?  refine?  Uncouth, for example,
> is
> given in texts as an affix plus bound root, but surely it doesn't mean
> not-couth.  Does anyone have a clear explanation of how to distinguish
> words with affix-looking parts from words that really have affixes +
> bound
> roots, preferably an explanation that does not require looking up
> derivations in the dictionary?
>
> Thanks for the help!
>
> Carolyn Chaney
> Just call me stumped
>
>
>
>
>
*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D
Research Associate, Project Manager
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

Tel: 413.545.5023
Fax: 413.545.0803

http://www.umass.edu/aae/