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Function word
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In , function words (also called functors), The Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937, pp. 13–14. are that have little lexical meaning or have meaning and express relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. They signal the structural relationships that words have to one another and are the glue that holds sentences together. Thus they form important elements in the structures of sentences.Klammer, Thomas, Muriel R. Schulz and Angela Della Volpe. (2009). Analyzing English Grammar (6th ed).Longman.

Words that are not function words are called (or open class words, lexical words, or autosemantic words) and include , most , , and most , although some adverbs are function words (like then and why). define the specific meanings of content words but can describe only the general usages of function words. By contrast, describe the use of function words in detail but treat lexical words only in general terms.

Since it was first proposed in 1952 by C. C. Fries, the distinguishing of function/structure words from content/lexical words has been highly influential in the grammar used in second-language acquisition and English-language teaching.


Overview
Function words might be , , , conjunctions, grammatical articles or particles, all of which belong to the group of closed-class words. are sometimes considered function words but they belong to the group of open-class words. Function words might or might not be or might have .

Function words belong to the closed class of words in because it is very uncommon to have new function words created in the course of speech. In the open class of words, i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, may be added readily, such as words, technical terms, and adoptions and adaptations of foreign words.

Each function word either: gives grammatical information about other words in a sentence or , and cannot be isolated from other words; or gives information about the speaker's mental model as to what is being said.

Grammatical words, as a class, can have distinct properties from content words. For example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with , but very few function words do. In English, very few words other than function words begin with the voiced th . English function words may be spelled with fewer than three letters; e.g., 'I', 'an', 'in', while non-function words usually are spelled with three or more (e.g., 'eye', 'Ann', 'inn').

The following is a list of the kind of words considered to be function words with English examples. They are all in English unless marked otherwise:

  • articles — the and a. In some inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the of the following noun.
  • he/him, she/her, etc. — inflected in English
  • in, under, towards, before, of, for, etc.
  • conjunctions — and and but
  • subordinating conjunctions — if, then, well, however, thus, etc.
  • would, could, should, etc. — inflected in English
  • particles — up, on, down
  • oh, ah, eh, sometimes called "filled pauses"
  • expletives — take the place of sentences, among other functions.
  • yes, no, , etc.


See also
  • , words that name objects of reality and their qualities
  • Grammaticalization, process by which words representing objects and actions transform to become grammatical markers
  • Grammatical relation


Further reading


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