Wortteil

Wortteil is a term used in German linguistics and language pedagogy to denote a part of a word. In everyday usage it is often taken to mean a syllable, the unit used for syllabification and hyphenation. In a broader linguistic sense, however, Wortteil can refer to the subword units that build a word, including morphemes such as prefixes, roots, and suffixes, as well as components of compounds.

Two main perspectives are common. The syllabic perspective treats Wortteile as segments according to pronunciation, for example the word Wolkenkratzer can be divided into syllables as Wo-len-krat-zer. The morphemic perspective analyzes Wortteile as meaningful units, such as Haus + auf + gabe in Hausaufgabe or Haus + -chen in Häuschen, where -chen is a diminutive suffix. In compounds, Wortteile can also be the individual word components, as in Licht + Schalter for Lichtschalter.

The term is therefore somewhat flexible and context-dependent. In school contexts, Wortteil often points to syllables and simple hyphenation rules, while in linguistic analysis it covers morphemes and other subword units. For precise terminology, distinctions such as Silbe (syllable) and Morphem (morpheme) are used, with Wortteil serving as a general, catch-all concept for parts of words.

See also: Wortstamm, Vorsilbe, Nachsilbe, Silbe, Morphem, Wortbildung.