English Morphology

1. CONTENT AND
FUNCTION WORDS
Prof.ª Esp. Ana Lourdes Pereira

2. TYPE OF WORDS
CONTENT WORDS FUNCTION WORDS

3. CONTENT WORDS
◦ Content words are words that have meaning.
◦ Lexical word
◦ Open-class word
◦ While nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are the most important content words, there are a few
other words that are also key to understanding.
◦ These include negatives like no, not and never; demonstrative pronouns including this, that, these
and those; and question words like what, where, when, how and why.
Grammatical Class Example
Nouns House, computer, lake
Verbs Enjoy, buy, visit, understand
Adjective Heavy, difficult, fast
Adverbs Slowly, carefully, often

4. FUNCTION WORDS
◦ Little semantic content of its own.
◦ Indicates a grammatical relationship.
◦ Closed-class word
◦ Such as preposition, conjunction or article
Grammatical Class Example
Articles The, a, an
Pronouns He, him, she, her, they, them
Conjunctions And, that, while, when, altough
Modal verbs Can, must, will, should, ought
Auxiliary verbs Be, have, got
Prepositions Of, at, in, without, under

5. *minimal word constraint: a lexical word cannot be shorter than two moras: either a heavy syllable, that is, either a syllable with a long vowel , or a closed syllable; or two light syllables
CONTENT WORDS FUNCTION WORDS
PROVIDE MEANING PROVIDE STRUCTURE
ADD AFFIXES TO CHANGE MEANING DO NOT CHANGE FORM OR MEANING (BUT
PERSONAL PRONOUNS)
IDENTIFIABLE THROUGH SIGNAL WORDS ARE OFTEN SIGNAL WORDS THEMSELVES
ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS AS LANGUAGE
CHANGES
NO ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS
OPEN-CLASS WORDS CLOSED-CLASS WORDS
OBBEY THE MINIMAL WORD CONSTRAINT* THERE ARE WORDS HERE THAT DO NOT OBBEY
MINIMAL WORD CONSTRAINT*

6. Stressed words
◦ Carry the meaning or the sense behind a
sentence.
◦ They carry the content of the sentence.
◦ Stress is always related to meaning
◦ stressed words = content words
Unstressed words
◦ Tend to be smaller words
◦ Have more of a grammatical significance
◦ They help the sentence function syntactically
◦ unstressed words = function words
01/06/2021

7. CAN WE DRAW A SHARP LINE
BETWEEN CONTENT AND
FUNCTION WORDS?
No.
BIG QUESTION

8. I HAVE COME TO SEE YOU
HAVE = FUNCTION WORD = AUXILIARY VERB
I HAVE THREE APPLES
HAVE = CONTENT WORD = FULL VERB

9. ONE HAS ONE’S PRINCIPLES
ONE = FUNCTION WORD = PRONOUN
I HAVE ONE APPLE
ONE = CONTENT WORD = NUMERAL

10. I HAVE NO MORE MONEY
NO = FUNCTION WORD = NEGATIVE PARTICLE
NO, I AM NOT COMING.
NO = CONTENT WORD = YES/NO ANSWER

11. GRAB PEN AND PAPER
We’re about to answer some exercises!
LET’S PRACTICE!

12. MARY HAS LIVED IN ENGLAND FOR TEN YEARS
MARY=
HAS=
LIVED=
IN=
ENGLAND=
FOR=
TEN=
YEARS=
I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS CHAPTER
I=
DON’T=
UNDERSTAND=
THIS=
CHAPTER=
CONTENT
CONTENT
CONTENT
CONTENT
CONTENT
FUNCTION
FUNCTION
FUNCTION
PRONOUN
AUX. VERB
FULL VERB
PREPOSITION
NOUN
PREPOSITION
NUMERAL
NOUN
CONTENT
FUNCTION
CONTENT
FUNCTION
CONTENT
PRONOUN
AUX VERB
FULL VERB
DETERMINER
NOUN

13. I AM TALKING TO THE CLEVER STUDENTS
I=
AM=
TALKING=
TO=
THE=
CLEVER=
STUDENTS=
JOHN HAD EATEN LUNCH BEFORE HIS FRIEND ARRIVED.
JOHN=
HAD=
EATEN=
LUNCH=
BEFORE=
HIS=
FRIEND=
ARRIVED=