The evidence for these verbs to be complex is that complex words decomposed or break down into constituents; for-bid, for-get, for-give, for-go, for-swear. On the other hand, the possible evidence for these words being simplex is the for- is not “meaningful” in relation to the other verbs, bid, get, give, go, swear thus they can’t be broken down. I personally think that these words are complex, besides the given evidence for complex provided above,  the prefix “for” is a “meaningful unit” that indicates ” someone or something going to” as well it can stand on its own and in relation to the other verbs add extra meaning.

There is evidence showing for these verbs being complex because each word, when taken apart from each other, can have a meaning of its own. For example, when decomposing the words: forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, forswear, each word can become a meaningful constituent of its own.

Simplex on the other hand is when a word can no longer be taken apart or decomposed into smaller units, that can make sense on its own. Therefore, some may argue that the verbs are not simplex but complex.

I believe that the verbs: forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, forswear are complex words because the constituents for-  can appear in other word forms, as seen in the examples given. Thus, when decomposing the words, the word-base will be for- meanwhile the rest of the endings, –bid, -get, -give, -go and -swear is known as the affixes. Therefore, showing that it is a morphological constituent when decomposed from words.

These words are complex words because they can be broken down into two morphological constituents. A complex word can be broken down if there are two morphemes that can stand alone and have meaning on their own. “Forbid” and all these other words that begin with “for” are complex seeing as how the “for” can be divided from the second half of the word. However, I do see how these can possibly be simplex words because while “for” is a word itself, it cannot really stand alone because the word is always followed by another word. “For” was made to be used as a prefix. From last week’s class I took notice that suffixes can be included in complex words and considered a morphological constituent. For example, “eater” was used as an example to introduce the difference between simplex and complex words. This was considered a complex word because of the morphological constituent “er.”  If suffixes and affixes are included when determining complex words, then I believe prefixes can be as well.

After considering if the words “forbid,“ “forget,” ”forgive,” “forgo” and “forswear” are complex or simplex; I came to the conclusion that they are all simplex words. In order for a word to be complex it must be comprised of more than one constituent. Thus meaning that it can be broken down into “smaller meaningful units.” Another condition must also apply in order for a word to be considered complex is; the pattern of the constituents must be systematic. This means that if a word can be broken up into constituents, there must be similar word pairs to one of the constituents for it to be complex. All of the words listed above can be broken down into two constituents each- with “for” being it’s prefix. While this may appear to be systemic since each word has the same prefix- it is still not enough to qualify it as a complex word because there is no meaningful pattern with “for.”  “For” does not have the same meaning in relation to the second unit of each word, therefore making it not systemic and disqualifying it from being complex.

These verbs can appear to be complex because if you analyze the words, you will see that they can be broken down into a prefix, “for”, and each of the verbs that they derived from (or stems), “bid”, “get”, “give”, “go”, “swear”.  All of these verbs have a specific meaning, but with “for” added to the front of the words, they have different meanings.  Therefore, it can be argued that these original verbs are stems to all of the derived words within this paradigm.

These verbs can also appear to be simplex because although “bid”, “get”, “give”, “go”, and “swear” are all verbs with a particular meaning, if “for” was a prefix in this paradigm then the affix would have a parallel meaning throughout all of these words.  For example, adding the suffix “-ed” to any verb creates a word form of the lexeme which represents that the action has happened in the past.

I think that the words in this paradigm are simplex because despite the fact that it seems they all share a prefix, the ‘prefix’ does not have the same meaning in each word.  For example, if you compare 1)”give” and “forgive” to 2)”bid” and “forbid”, you will see that adding “for” to “give” changes the meaning from “to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation; bestow” to “to grant pardon for or remission of; absolve”.  Whereas, adding “for” to “bid” changes the meaning from “to command; order; direct” to “to command (a person) to not do something, have something, etc.”  In comparing these two examples you will see that adding “for” to each of the ‘stems’ does not create the same change.  Therefore these word forms are not systematically related to their original lexemes.  So I feel that it is safe to assume that “for”, in this given set of words, is not a morphological constituent.

Simplex words are words that contain a single morpheme. In other words, simplex words cannot be broken down into smaller parts. On the other hand, complex words are words that contain two or more morphemes that can be broken down and can stand alone. In my opinion, the following words: forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, forswear are all complex words for the simple fact that they can be broken down into two parts, systematically. All the words contain the preposition, “for”, and a verb attached. Every word has these two parts that can stand alone and have their own meanings. But they come together, systematically, to create these new complex words.

From what I understood from last weeks meeting, complex words are made up of two or more morphemes. These types of words can be broken down into much smaller units. Now, simplex words have no affixes and is not part of a compound. It can not be broken down any further than it already is. These words usually can stand alone, while, I believe, complex words cannot. I think that when looking at the words, forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, and forswear, I see that they are all complex words. My reasoning for this is because teach word is able to be broken down further than a simplex word would be able to. For example, the word “forgo” would be broken down into the two words “for-go”. The “go”, would be the affix of the word. So for the other words, the affixes would be, “get”, “bid”, “give”, and “swear”. All of these words are able to stand alone once the word in the beginning is taken away, which would be the word “for”.

Simplex words are words with a single morpheme and no affixes that cannot be broken down into anything smaller. Complex words are words that have two or more morphemes, affixes and are able to break down into smaller parts. When looking at the words forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, and forswear they are all complex words. Each word can separate to have it’s own meaning and have a different meaning when put together. For example, for-bid, for-get, for-give, for-go, and for-swear. When examining each word, there is a prefix “for” in the beginning of each word and at the end there are different constituents attached. For example, bid, get, give, go, and swear are all constituents added on to the prefix “for” in order to create more complex words from a simplex word. Since all of these words can be broken apart into smaller words, it shows that they are all complex.

A simplex word is a word that cannot be broken down any further. They can stand alone and cannot be broken down into more words with their own meanings. A complex word is a word that can be broken down into two or more meaningful constituents. When looking at these words, forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, and forswear, they are all complex words. Each word can be broken apart into two different words. Each word can stand alone. Each word when broken apart has a meaning that can then be used in the complex word. I also believe these words may be systemically related, but I am still a little unsure. I believe the “for” in each of these words has a similar enough meaning to be considered systemically related, but I may be misunderstanding.

From last weeks class and reading I understand that simplex word cannot be broken down any further into smaller units. Meaning, there are no affixes attached to the word, the word itself stands alone. Whereas complex words, contain affixes and are able to break down into smaller units or constituents. I believe that the words “forbid,” “forget,” “forgive,” “forgo,” and “forswear” are complex words. For each word given  there is a prefix (for) with an a root word attached. One example is, the word  “forget.” You are able to breakdown the word “forget” into two constituents, for and get. Looking at the word “for” alone, I understand that it is a simplex word because it cannot be broken down any further. In the list of words given, they all have 2 constituents, which means that they would be complex words. In this case the word “for” would be the prefix and the words “bid”, “get”, “give”, “go” and “swear” would be the affixes.