The word function in linguistics

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In linguistics, function words (also called functors)^[1] are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical 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.^[2]

Words that are not function words are called content words (or open class words, lexical words, or autosemantic words) and include nouns, most verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs although some adverbs are function words (like then and why). Dictionaries define the specific meanings of content words but can describe only the general usages of function words. By contrast, grammars 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.^[3]

Overview[edit]

Function words might be prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, grammatical articles or particles, all of which belong to the group of closed-class words. Interjections are sometimes considered function words but they belong to the group of open-class words. Function words might or might not be inflected or might have affixes.

Function words belong to the closed class of words in grammar 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, new words may be added readily, such as slang words, technical terms, and adoptions and adaptations of foreign words.

Each function word either: gives grammatical information about other words in a sentence or clause, 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 phonological properties from content words. Grammatical words sometimes do not make full use of all the sounds in a language. For example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with clicks, but very few function words do.^[4] In English, very few words other than function words begin with the voiced th [ð]^{[citation needed]}. English function words may have fewer than three letters; e.g., ‘I’, ‘an’, ‘in’, while non-function words usually have 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 uninflected in English unless marked otherwise:

articles — the and a. In some inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the declension of the following noun.
pronouns — he :: him, she :: her, etc. — inflected in English
adpositions — in, under, towards, before, of, for, etc.
conjunctions — and and but
subordinating conjunctions — if, then, well, however, thus, etc.
auxiliary verbs — would, could, should, etc. — inflected in English
particles — up, on, down
interjections — oh, ah, eh, sometimes called «filled pauses»
expletives — take the place of sentences, among other functions.
pro-sentences — yes, no, okay, etc.

References[edit]

^ Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937, pp. 13–14.
^ Klammer, Thomas, Muriel R. Schulz and Angela Della Volpe. (2009). Analyzing English Grammar (6th ed).Longman.
^ Fries, Charles Carpenter (1952). The Structure of English. New York: Harcourt Brace.
^ Westphal, E.O.J. (1971), «The click languages of Southern and Eastern Africa», in Sebeok, T.A. (ed.), Current trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa, Berlin: Mouton

External links[edit]

Short list of 225 English function words

Источник

Both
the traditional and the syntactico — distributional classifications
divide parts of speech into notional
and
functional.

Criteria
for differentiating:

the
prominence of their lexical meaning
peculiarities
of their combinability
ability
to be substituted by a word of a more general meaning
ability
to create/add new items

Notional
words

Complete
nominative force
Self-dependent
functions in a sentence
Can
be used in isolation
Can
be substituted by a word of a more general meaning
Open
classes (new items can be added to them, they are indefinitely
extendable)

Functional
words

Incomplete
nominative force
Non-self-dependent
mediatory functions:
linking
or specifying
Obligatory
combinability
Cannot
be substituted
Closed
classes (closed
systems, including a limited number of members. As a rule, they
cannot be extended by creating new items)

The
main notional
parts of speech are nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Members of these four classes are
often connected by derivational relations: strength
—
strengthen;-
strong —
strongly.

Functional
parts of speech are
prepositions, conjunctions, articles, particles.

Pronouns
constitute a class of words which takes an intermediary position
between notional and functional words. On the one hand, they can
substitute for nouns and adjectives, on the other hand, pronouns are
used as connectives and specifiers.

Groups
of functional words (function words — Ch. Fries)

With
a
unilateral combinability
– articles, auxiliaries, modals, particles
With
a
bilateral combinability
– prepositions and conjunctions which connect 2 or more notional
words or word- groups
Heterogeneous
subclass
uniting introductory it/there, interrogative words, interjections
etc

There
may be also groups of closed-system items(functional words) within an
open class notional words)- e.g. notional,
functional and auxiliary verbs.

A
word in English is very often not marked morphologically and it is
easy for words to pass from one class to another (round
as
a noun, adjective, verb, preposition). Such words arc treated either
as lexico-grammatical homonyms or as words belonging to one class.

7.The noun. The category of number

Noun
as a part of speech:

Semantic
– a part of speech which categorial meaning is thingness
Formal
– a) form-building – the category of number, the category of
case, the category of gender, the category of article determination

b)
derivational – typical word-building patterns: suffixation,
compounding, convertion (to walk – a walk)

3)
Functional – a) combinability: left-hand prepositional
combinability with another N/V/Adj./Adv. [+ prep.Noun],casal
combinability [N’s+N](
.:
the
speech of the President —
the
President’s speech),
contact comb-ty [N+N]- stone-wall constructions, take
an intermediary position between compound nouns and noun phrases
(stone wall, car roof, speech sound),
comb-ty with articles and other determiners [art./det. + N]

b)
Syntactic functions – subject, object, other functions are less
typical

Nouns
fall into several subclasses which differ as to their semantic and
grammatical properties: common — proper, concrete — abstract,
countable — uncountable (count — non-count, count — mass),
animate — inanimate, personal — non-personal (human —
non-human).

Lexico-
semantic variants of nouns may belong to different subclasses: paper
— a paper, etc.

The
class of nouns can be described as a lexico-grammatical field.
Nouns denoting things constitute the centre (nucleus) of the field.
Nouns denoting processes, qualities, abstract notions (predicate
nouns) are marginal, peripheral elements of the field.

Nucleus
and periphery are distinguished on the basis of lexico-semantic
properties and morph. characteristics – subclasses of Nouns
The
nucleus -> common- concrete-countable- animate Nouns
The
periphery -> abstract – material- uncountable Nouns

The
category of number

The
only category of nouns, which is generally accepted, is the category
of number. Many scholars think that the notion of case applies to
English pronouns, but not to nouns. Gender distinctions are not
marked morphologically.

The
category of number
— is a semantically rooted morphological category ,

depends
on how the referent is perceived: as a discrete, hence countable
entity, one or more than one, OR as an indiscrete indivisible, hence
uncountable entity
this
semantic contrast is revealed through lexical and morphological
means which are accompanied by syntactic marking

Lexical
( lexico-syntactic) means:

The
process of lexicalizing
semantic contrast consists in denoting a discrete countable entity
by one word – a meal and an indiscrete uncountable entity – by
another – food.

We
made a journey – we made a travel

Lexico-
grammatical means:

-s
– news – singularia tantum, goods – pluralia tantum, marked
through syntactic
patterning – the
form of the predicate verb, use of articles and corresponding
pronouns

Lexicalization
of the plural form (the
process when a word requires a new name, a word already having a
meaning gets a new one)

Colours
— > flag, pains -.> efforts

Grammatical
means:

The
morph. Category of Number is realized through inflectional
marking (categorial
forms) and/or syntactic patterning

Form:
the category of Number is constituted by the inflectional opposition
of 2 categorial forms of Noun:

Non-pl.(sg.)
— Pl⁺
binary,
privative opposition

Dog⁻
dogs⁺
⁺
—a
strong marked member, marked through the inflexion, ⁻-
zero morpheme.

Sg.
– no positive mark, zero inflexion, a weak unmarked member, many
a river

Pl.
– morpheme of plurality – (e)s, represented by:

the
allomorphs ( variants of 1 morpheme) books
(s), boys(z), boxes(iz)
by
some other allomorphs ex. oxen
internal
inflexion – sound interchange mouse-mice
zero
inflexion (NB! – only in grammar) – sheep,
means

Meaning
of their category of Number and its members the
foundation
is laid by the opposition

Discreteness
– non- discreteness which
embraces countable and uncountable nouns

Discrete
counts
form the inflexional opposition

Non-pl.-
pl.
dog⁻-dogs⁺

Non-pl.
– a single object having distinct outer boundaries

Pl.
– a set of homogeneous objects having distinct inner and outer
boundaries

Indiscrete
uncounts
constitute the lexico-gram.
opposition of subclasses of nouns:

Sg.
Only – pl. only

Sg.
only –
indiscrete entities having no boundaries ->mainly abstract and
material uncounts

Pl.only
(see
pract. Grammar)

THE
CATEGORY OF NUMBER

Discreteness
Non-discreteness

morphological
c. lexico-gram.
subclass

Non-pl.(oneness)
Sg. only

—
a single discrete entity — indiscrete
entities, no boundaries

Pl.(more
–than- oneness) Pl. only

—
multiplicity of discrete entities <…>

Bloh
Pl only

The
characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects
consisting of two halves
(trousers,
scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.),
the
nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning,
i.e. rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and
abstract (supplies,
outskirts, clothes, parings; tidings, earnings, contents, politics;
police, cattle, poultry, etc.),
the
nouns denoting some diseases as well as some abnormal states of the
body and mind
(measles,
rickets, mumps, creeps, hysterics, etc.).
As is seen from the examples, from the point of view of number as
such, the absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute
plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the
rest).

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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.

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

Since it was first proposed in 1952 by C. C. Fries, this 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.^[3]

Overview

Function words belong to the closed class of words in grammar in that it is very uncommon to have new function words created in the course of speech, whereas in the open class of words (that is, nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs) new words may be added readily (such as slang words, technical terms, and adoptions and adaptations of foreign words). See neologism.

Each function word either gives some grammatical information on other words in a sentence or clause, and cannot be isolated from other words, or it may indicate the speaker’s mental model as to what is being said.

Grammatical words, as a class, can have distinct phonological properties from content words. Grammatical words sometimes do not make full use of all the sounds in a language. For example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with clicks, but very few function words do.^[4] In English, very few words other than function words begin with voiced th [ð]^{[citation needed]} (see Pronunciation of English th); English function words may have fewer than three letters ‘I’, ‘an’, ‘in’ while non-function words usually have three or more ‘eye’, ‘Ann’, ‘inn’ (see three letter rule).

The following is a list of the kind of words considered to be function words:

articles — the and a. In some inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the declension of the following noun.
pronouns — inflected in English, as he — him, she — her, etc.
adpositions — uninflected in English
conjunctions — and — uninflected in English
subordinating conjunctions — if, then, well, however, thus, etc.
auxiliary verbs — forming part of the conjugation (pattern of the tenses of main verbs), always inflected
particles — up, on, down
interjections — sometimes called «filled pauses»
expletives — take the place of sentences, among other functions.
pro-sentences — yes, okay, etc.

References

^ Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937, pp. 13–14.
^ Klammer, Thomas, Muriel R. Schulz and Angela Della Volpe. (2009). Analyzing English Grammar (6th ed).Longman.
^ Fries, Charles Carpenter (1952). The Structure of English. New York: Harcourt Brace.
^ Westphal, E.O.J. (1971), «The click languages of Southern and Eastern Africa», in Sebeok, T.A. (ed.), Current trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa, Berlin: Mouton

External links

Short list of 225 English function words

Источник

Function words (or grammatical words) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. Words which are not function words are called content words (or lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs, although some adverbs are function words (e.g., «then» and «why»). Dictionaries define the specific meanings of content words, but can only describe the general usages of function words. By contrast, grammars describe the use of function words in detail, but treat lexical words in general terms only.

Grammatical words, as a class, can have distinct phonological properties from content words. Grammatical words sometimes do not make full use of all the sounds in a language. For example, in some of the Khoisan languages, most content words begin with clicks, but very few function words do.Citation | last =Westphal | first =E.O.J. | contribution =The click languages of Southern and Eastern Africa | year =1971 | title =Current trends in Linguistics, Vol. 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa | editor-last =Sebeok | editor-first =T.A. | place=Berlin | publisher =Mouton] In English, only function words begin with voiced «th-» IPA| [ð] (see Pronunciation of English th).

The following is a list of the kind of words considered to be function words:
*articles – «the» and «a». In highly inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the declension of the following noun.
*pronouns – inflected in English, as «he»–»him», «she»–»her», etc.
*adpositions – uninflected in English
*conjunctions – uninflected in English
*auxiliary verbs – forming part of the conjugation (pattern of the tenses of main verbs), always inflected
*interjections – sometimes called «filled pauses», uninflected
*particles – convey the attitude of the speaker and are uninflected, as «if», «then», «well», «however», «thus», etc.
*expletives – take the place of sentences, among other functions.
*pro-sentences – «yes», «okay», etc.

References

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2010.

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Overview[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

7.The noun. The category of number

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links