Lexical studies (functional and content words)

Resource Person: Sir Khalil Ahmad Presented by:- Maqsood Ahmad ID# 090418002 (MSc AL) University of Management and Technology Johar Town. Lahore.

Topic:-
Why can’t
we draw a sharp line
between
content words
and
function words ?

Criteria for Word Classes
We use a combination of three criteria for determining the word class of a word:
The meaning of the word
The form or `shape' of the word
The position or environment of the word in a sentence

What is a function word?
Little semantic content of its own
Indicates a grammatical relationship .
No identifiable meaning
closed-class word
such as preposition, conjunction or article

Different names for function words:
Function words
Grammatical words
Auto semantic words
Little lexical meaning

Have ambiguous meaning
For example:
This is a boy.
This boy is running.
Serve to express grammatical relationships with other words
within a sentence
Specify the attitude or mood of the speaker

Function words:
The following is a list considered to be function words:
Articles: the, a.
Pronouns: he, him, she, her, etc.
Conjunctions: and, that, when, while, although, or
Interjections: sometimes called "filled pauses", uninflected
Modal verbs : can, must, will, should, ought, need, used

Auxiliary verbs: be (is, am, are), have, got, do
Particles: if, then, well, however, thus, no, not, nor, as etc.
Expletives: take the place of sentences, among other functions.
Pro-sentences: yes, okay, etc.
Prepositions: of, at, in, without, between
Pronouns: he, they, anybody, it, one
Determiners: the, a, that, my, more, much, either, neither

More fine-grained distinction
All grammatical morphology is “functional”
Bound morphemes:
Derivation affixes: -er. -ly, -ment etc.
Inflectional affixes:
Free morphemes:

What is a content word?
Not function word
open class word
lexical word
Uninflected stems are content “words”

Content words
Nouns: John, room, answer
Full verbs: search, grow, hold, have
Adjectives: happy, new, large, grey
Adverbs: really, completely, very, also, enough
Numerals: one, thousand, first
Interjections: eh, ugh, phew, well
Yes/No answers: yes, no (as answers)

Differences between content and function words
The class of function words is closed.
Do not easily add new words to this set.
English has 300 closed class words.
The class of content words is open.
New words are being added in every language

Differences between content and function words
Content words obey the minimal word constraint but function words do not.
Little function words: I, the, a, it, of, etc…
No open class words are this little!
Function words are acquired later than content words.

Question is:
Can we draw a sharp line between
content words
and
function words ?
Answer is:
NO.
Because, The same lexical word
can function
either content or function word
depending on its function in an utterance.

For example:
"I have come to see you"
"have" is a function word (auxiliary verb)
"I have three apples"
"have" is a content word (full verb)
Example:
"One has one's principles"
"one" is a function word (pronoun)
"I have one apple"
"one" is a content word (numeral)

Example:
"I have no more money"
"no" is a function word (a negative particle)
"No. I am not coming"
"no" is a content word (Yes/No answer)

Numerals are a subclass of nouns:
like nouns, they can take determiners
the two of us,
the first of many
They can even have numerals as determiners before them
Example,
“ five twos are ten”
twos is a plural noun
It has the determiner five before it.

Considerable overlap between the
determiner class and the
subclass of pronouns . Many words can be both:
Example:
Pronoun
This is a very boring book
That's an excellent film
Determiner
That film is excellent
This book is very boring

Determiners function in much the same way
as nouns and they can be replaced by nouns.
This is a very boring book Ivanhoe is a very boring book
That 's an excellent film Witness is an excellent film
On the other hand, when these words are determiners, they cannot be replaced by nouns :
This book is very boring Ivanhoe book is very boring
That film is excellent Witness film is excellent

Personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc) cannot be determiners. This is also true for possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his/hers, ours, and theirs).
These pronouns do have corresponding forms which are determiners:
Possessive Pronoun Determiner
The white car is mine. My car is white.
Yours is the blue coat. Your coat is blue.
The car in the garage is his/hers. His/her car is in the garage.
David's house is big but ours is bigger. Our house is bigger than David's.
Theirs is the house on the left. Their house is on the left.

Stressed words carry the meaning or the sense behind the sentence
For this reason they are called “Content Words”
They carry the content of the sentence
Unstressed words tend to be smaller words
Have more of a grammatical significance
They help the sentence “function” syntactically
For this reason they are called “Function Words”
Sometimes “Function Words” are referred to as “Structure Words”

For example:
I am talking to the clever students .
You’re sitting on the desk
but you aren’t listening to me.

Example 2:
“ No!” screamed David angrily
as he wiped away the tears from his face
and ran into his bedroom.
“ What’s your name and how are you today ?”

No w
Questions please

Thank
Have a good day
you

Lexical studies (functional and content words)

by Maqsood Ahmad

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