Just some questions on English Language

[recess]

Hi! I have some questions that I would like to clarify but don't know where to post it so I just started a new topic.

1. Is each other a compound word?
2. What is the difference between a root and a stem?
3. Is a free morpheme, in essence, just a lexeme?

Thanks a lot!

[EulerFan102]

Hey, great questions! (and welcome to the forums) Here are my thoughts 

1. Is each other a compound word?

I probably wouldn't go so far as to call "each other" a compound word, though they're definitely two words that occur commonly with each other (collocation). "Compound" usually refers to words formed by combining two words (e.g. "doorknob", "bingewatch", "Westworld"), though there are also compound nouns which is when two or more nouns appear together in a noun phrase.

2. What is the difference between a root and a stem?

The root is the central, fundamental base morpheme of a word. On the other hand, the stem is a base that other morphemes can be added on to. Probably easiest to illustrate with an example:
Let's take the word "holdings". The root of the word is "hold", with has had the morpheme "-ing" added. Then the stem "holding" has had the morpheme "-s" added.
So the root is the fundamental base, whereas the root is any section which a morpheme has then been added onto.

3. Is a free morpheme, in essence, just a lexeme?

So many free morphemes will be lexemes but the definition of the terms are different:
Free morpheme: any morphemes that can stand by itself (e.g. "dog", "Melbourne", "plant")
Lexeme: one of a set of words with the same core meaning (e.g. "eat", "ate", "eats" and "eating" are all forms of the same lexeme)

[recess]

Thank you so much! So essentially, a stem can be a root, but a root cannot be a stem?

[MissSmiley]

So many free morphemes will be lexemes but the definition of the terms are different:
Free morpheme: any morphemes that can stand by itself (e.g. "dog", "Melbourne", "plant")
Lexeme: one of a set of words with the same core meaning (e.g. "eat", "ate", "eats" and "eating" are all forms of the same lexeme)

Thank you so so much EulerFan102 for giving such awesome explanations, and obviously recess for bringing up these fantastic questions!!

Could I just clarify EulerFan102, is "eat" is the lexmeme then?!!  (Sorry if this is a dumb question, but then I thought to clarify about how you said "ate," "eats" and "eating" are all forms of the same lexeme.) So is the "same lexeme" - eat?

Thanks a lot guys!