is "together" a monomorphemic word or can it be broken into "to" (derivational prefix) "geth" (bound root) "er" (inflectional suffix). or could it be I a free open-class word either because it can have other forms such as togetherness
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1I am not entirely sure of the nature of "-er" here, but it is certainly not an inflectional suffix (I would be lead to believe it is part of the root). "to-" being a derivational prefix makes more sense, as it is not too difficult to see how the root "gather" would have evolved to become "gether" in this situation.– Quintus Caesius - RMMay 17 at 8:11
1 Answer
Old English togædere is patently a compound to+gædere, with the last part cognate with New English “gather”. But since “gether” no longer exists in English, I suppose that synchronically “together” is a single morpheme.