Which term describes a group of words sharing the same root but with different affixes, such as love, lovely, loving, unloved?

Which term describes a group of words sharing the same root but with different affixes, such as love, lovely, loving, unloved?

• A. Word family
• B. Morphology set
• C. Root family
• D. Affix group

Answer: (A)

A word family. The idea is that a single root can generate related words by adding different affixes, changing meaning or part of speech. Love is the root, and attaching -y gives lovely, -ing gives loving, and un- with -ed gives unloved. All of these share the same root and form a family of related words. The other terms aren’t the standard way linguists describe this grouping, whereas word family specifically captures the relationship among all the derived forms.

A word family. The idea is that a single root can generate related words by adding different affixes, changing meaning or part of speech. Love is the root, and attaching -y gives lovely, -ing gives loving, and un- with -ed gives unloved. All of these share the same root and form a family of related words. The other terms aren’t the standard way linguists describe this grouping, whereas word family specifically captures the relationship among all the derived forms.