Which term describes a group of words sharing the same root with different affixes?

• A. word family
• B. lemma
• C. stem
• D. root set

Answer: (A)

In morphology, a word family is a group of related words that share a common root and differ by affixes. This idea captures how different forms are built from the same core piece by adding prefixes, suffixes, or inflectional endings. For example, starting from the root act, you can form act, action, active, activate, actor, and acting—these related forms all revolve around the same root and together constitute a word family. A lemma is the dictionary form used to look up a word, not the set of related forms. The stem is the base to which affixes attach for a specific word, and a root set isn’t a standard term.