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(which some linguists also call a stem). While the inflectional plural morpheme -s can be attached to friendship to form friendships, it can not be attached to the root friend within friendship to form friendsship. A stem is a base from which all its inflected variants are formed. For example, the stabil- (a variant of stable unable to stand alone) is the root of the destabilized, while the stem consists of de·stabil·ize, including de- and -ize. The -(e)d, on the other hand, is not part of the stem.

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