gyökérszó

A gyökérszó, in linguistics, refers to the core, uninflected, and indivisible part of a word. It is the fundamental element from which other related words are derived. Think of it as the root of a tree, with all other branches and leaves growing from it.

In Hungarian, for example, the gyökérszó for "house" is "ház". From this root, we can form words like "háza" (his/her/its house), "házak" (houses), "házban" (in the house), and "házas" (married, literally "having a house"). The gyökérszó itself carries the basic meaning, and suffixes or prefixes are added to modify its grammatical function or semantic nuance.

Identifying the gyökérszó is crucial for understanding word formation and etymology within a language. It helps to see the relationships between seemingly different words and how they share a common origin. This concept is not exclusive to Hungarian; similar root concepts exist in many other languages, though the terminology might differ. For instance, in English, "write" could be considered a root word, from which "writer," "writing," and "rewriting" are derived. The gyökérszó is the irreducible semantic unit.