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An unpaired word is one that, according to the usual rules of the language, would appear to have a related word but does not. [1] Such words usually have a prefix or suffix that would imply that there is an antonym , with the prefix or suffix being absent or opposite.
A morphological gap is the absence of a word that could exist given the morphological rules of a language, including its affixes. [1] For example, in English a deverbal noun can be formed by adding either the suffix -al or -(t)ion to certain verbs (typically words from Latin through Anglo-Norman French or Old French).
The word "inept" appears several times in passing, though not in the "Unpaired words in English" table, with the suggested antonym "ept". But I've occasionally wondered whether its proper opposite is "apt".
Affixes may be inflectional, indicating how a certain word relates to other words in a larger phrase, or derivational, changing either the part of speech or the actual meaning of a word. [6] Most roots in English are free morphemes (e.g. examin-in examination, which can occur in isolation: examine), but others are bound (e.g. bio-in biology).
English does have some words that are associated with gender, but it does not have a true grammatical gender system. "English used to have grammatical gender. We started losing it as a language ...
A dialectal word can become part of the standard language in a compound, but not in its root form: e.g. blatherskite ("one who talks nonsense"), as Scots has the word skite ("contemptible person"). A word can become obsolete in its root form but remain current in a compound: e.g. lukewarm from Middle English luke ("tepid").
If the word 'conversent' doesn't exist, then the article Conversation has to be corrected. I am not sure it is not a linguistic technical term, even if I'd agree that it is not used colloquially. OsmanRF34 16:31, 8 September 2013 (UTC) The word exists, but not in English.
In analyzing the errors English-speaking children make (such as the over-application of morphological rules to create words like mouses and bringed), Pinker concludes that irregular forms are not remembered in terms of the supposed rules that produce them (such as a rule that would produce sleep/slept, weep/wept, keep/kept, etc.), but instead ...