Definition please: "stem"

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Sat, 25 Jan 1997 13:17:05 -0500

My grammar books each use the term "stem" without defining it precisely. Is
this a well defined term? If I had to guess, I would say that the stem of a
verb is whatever is left when you remove any augments or reduplication from
the front and any endings from the back. Is this accurate?

I used to use the term "stem" only for the present stem and second aorist
stem. I just noticed that Machen speaks of a "future stem". Is each of the
principle parts a stem?

Jonathan

P.S., no, I still haven't bought a morphology book...

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