A.    DEFINITION

1.      Function words (closed class words/grammatical words).

Function word are words that have little meaning in the dictionary sense but which serve important functions to express grammatical relationship with other words within a sentence.

1)      KINDS OF FUNCTION WORD

ü  Articles

Article is a type of determiner that precedes a noun.

There are two types of article in English:

-          definite article (the)

-          indefinite (a/an)

ü  Auxiliary verbs

Auxiliary verbs are “helping” verbs that combine with various parts of other verbs to make verb phrases.

Kinds of auxiliary verb: be, have, do, modals

ü  Conjunctions

-          A conjunction is used to link words, phrases, and clauses.

-          Kinds of conjunctions: Coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Conjunctions and, that, when, while, although, or

ü  Determiners.

-          A word or a group of words that introduces a noun. Determiners include articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, and possessive determiners.

-          Article: the, a/an

-          Demonstratives: this, that, these, those

-          Quantifiers: all, some, much, many, a lot of, etc.

-          Possessive determiners in English are my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.

-          Determiners the, a, that, my, more, much, either,

neither

ü  Intensifiers.

-          A word that emphasizes another word or phrase.

-          It's quite hot today.

-          Ms. Stress is really busy right now.

-          He's my very best friend.

ü  Prepositions

-          Prepositions are the words that indicate location. Usually, prepositions show this location in the physical world. Ex Prepositions of, at, in, without, between

Example:

-          The puppy is on the floor.

-          The puppy is in the trash can.

-          The puppy is beside the phone.

ü  Pronouns

-          A word that takes the place of a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause. Ex Pronouns he, they, anybody, it, one

ü  Intensifiers

-          An interjection is a word added to a sentence to convey emotion. It is not grammatically related to any other part of the sentence.

-          In writing, an interjection is typically followed by an exclamation point.

Example:

-          Ouch, that hurt!

-          Oh no, I forgot that the exam was today.

-          Hey! Put that down!

2.      Content words (Open Class)

Content words include nouns, verbs, and adjectives and have an explainable lexical meaning. Unlike function words, content words are described in terms of their specific meanings rather than their syntactic or grammatical functions. Function and content words should be seen as forming a continuum rather than two different categories because some words, like the English preposition “behind,” share characteristics of both.

Kinds of content words

-          Nouns John, room, answer

-          Adjectives happy, new, large, grey

-          “Full” verbs search, grow, hold, have

-          Adverbs really, completely, very, also, enough.