In Mounce's Basics... grammar, he states that it is the stem that carries the basic meaning of the word. However, when it comes to memorizing basic vocabulary, we are taught the "lexical form" of each word. For nouns, this is the nominative/singular form (some people are also taught the genitive singular). For verbs, this is the 1st person/singular form.
But since we are all taught the various noun and verb inflections separately, then what is the point of memorizing vocabulary by only its lexical form? If it is the STEM or ROOT of a word that carries the basic meaning, and since vocabulary studies are done to learn what the basic meanings are, then logically shouldn't you just be learning what the stems are? We are all taught the various inflectional patterns anyway, so there shouldn't be too many problems recognizing the nominative/singular forms anyway.
Also, in a given sentence, you hardly come across a noun in the nominative/singular, since most sentences contain the subject already in the main verb, or use the nominative/PLURAL instead of singular, and the rest of the nouns in the sentence are usually in the genitive, dative, and accusative cases functioning as objects and modifiers. So it also does not seem that practical to memorize the form of a word that is not even used that often in an actual New Testament sentence.
Mounce, and also my Greek prof, said that we learn the lexical forms because that is how they appear in lexicons. But learning language is not supposed to be about looking up words in lexicons, it's supposed to be about recognizing things in the actual text itself. Plus, as I just mentioned, if lexicons list nouns by their nominative/singular forms, then if you have the stems memorized as well as the nominative/singular forms memorized, you should be able to do the simple math to arrive at a noun's nom/sg form and have no problem finding that form in a lexicon.
What I especially find is unnecessary is when it comes to 3rd declension nouns. For 3rd declension, we are taught both the nominative and genitive singular forms, because the nominative forms are often irregular, while you discover the stem by taking the case ending off of the genitive form. But since you have learned the 3rd declension inflectional case endings separately anyway, why not just memorize the single noun stem? You already know how the nominative/singular case endings attach to its root, like how the sigma contracts with a stem that ends in a kappa to produce the xi, and other simple contraction rules or simple things like how tau drops off if it is at the end of a word; and plus you would only have to memorize one thing (the stem) instead of two things (the nominative AND genitive/singular forms).
Am I making any sense?
