Derivational (or word-formation analysis) studies the structural patterns and rules on which words are built. Analysing the word-formation structure of a word one tries to answer the question: What was formed from what? One studies the last word-formation act, the result of which is this or that unit. For example, in the word Oxbridgian the last word-formation act was suffixation (Oxbridge + -ian), but in the previous word-formation act telescoping took place (Oxford + Cambridge).
The results of the morphemic analysis and the word-formation analysis may coincide. For instance, in the words bookish and childish there are two morphemes: the root book- and the suffix -ish, the root child- and the suffix -ish respectively (the morphemic analysis), both are formed by suffixation (the word-formation analysis). However, there are a lot of other cases when the results of the analyses do not coincide. For example, from the point of view of the morphemic analysis there is no difference between the structures of interchange, n and interview, v (the word interchange consists of the root change- and the prefix inter-, and the word interview is composed of the root view- and the prefix inter-). However, from the point of view of the word-formation pattern they are fundamentally different. The first word is formed by prefixation, the second - by conversion (the model is N -> V).
Pseudo-morpheme ['sju:d9o'mo:fi:m] (or quasimorpheme ['kwu:zi-]) is a morpheme which has a differential meaning and a distributional meaning but does not possess any lexical or functional (part-of-speech) meaning. For instance, in the words retain, detain, contain or receive, deceive, conceive, the clusters re-, de-, con- (having nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes re-, de- in the words rewrite, reorganize, deodorize, decode) and -tain, -ceive have no lexical meaning. However, they have a differential meaning because re- distinguishes retain from detain, and -tain distinguishes retain from receive. They also have a distributional meaning as their order points to the affixal status of re-, de-, con- and makes one understand -tain and -ceive as roots. However, as they lack any lexical meaning of their own, they can be characterized only as pseudo-morphemes.
Unique root [ju:'ni:k 'ru:t] is also a pseudo-morpheme since it has no lexical meaning but it carries a differential meaning and a distributional meaning. The difference between an ordinary pseudo-morpheme and a unique root lies in the following: 1. a unique root does not occur in other words; 2. in a word, containing a unique root, other morphemes display a more or less clear lexical meaning. For example, in the word hamlet (“a small village”), ham- is a unique root because it does not occur in any other words of Modern English and has no lexical meaning. Yet ham- carries a differential meaning and a distributional meaning as it distinguishes hamlet from the words piglet and booklet. It is clear that the differential meaning of ham- is upheld by the lexical meaning of -let (it is a suffix with a diminutive meaning).
In the compound words cranberry, gooseberry and mulberry, cran-, goose- and mul- also belong to unique roots. Cranberry is probably the most famous example of a word with a unique root, that is why unique roots are often referred to as cranberry morphemes.
Some other examples of words with unique roots are pocket, Friday.
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