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Re: confession: roots

From:Tom Tadfor Little <tom@...>
Date:Friday, May 4, 2001, 22:52
At 01:39 PM Friday 5/4/01, you wrote:
>Okay, I confess, I *really* don't understand roots. I understand that >languages evolve from earlier languages, but my understanding of a root is >that it is not a useable word, just a sliver of meaning, and how the hell >did that ever evolve? Or is a root just the earlier word stripped of its >grammar?
Someone may correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that roots are something of an abstraction created by linguists to help analyze word forms. If two words of related meaning also have clear morphological/phonological commonality, that commonality can be isolated from the words in question and called a root. Whether a root was ever a word in an earlier form of the language is a question for reconstructionists; the answer often seems to be "no"--the reconstructed proto-language may have its own systems endings or other "dressing" to make the roots into words. I don't recall ever reading any kind of general account of how roots are related to actual words, in a language evolution sense. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tom Tadfor Little tom@telp.com Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) Telperion Productions www.telp.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~