In English grammar, a function word is a word that expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with other words in a sentence.
In contrast to a content word, a function word has little or no meaningful content. Nonetheless, as Ammon Shea points out, «the fact that a word does not have a readily identifiable meaning does not mean that it serves no purpose.»
Function words are also known as:
- structure words
- grammatical words
- grammatical functors
- grammatical morphemes
- function morphemes
- form words
- empty words
According to James Pennebaker, «function words account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of your vocabulary but make up almost 60 percent of the words you use.»
Content Words vs. Function Words
Function words include determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, modals, qualifiers, and question words. Content words are words with specific meanings, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and main verbs (those without helping verbs.) In the sentence, «The sly brown fox jumped gracefully over the lazy dog and cat,» the content words are:
- fox, dog, and cat (nouns)
- sly, brown, and lazy (adjectives)
- gracefully (adverb)
- jumped (main verb)
Function words include:
- the (determiner)
- over (preposition)
- and (conjunction)
Even though the function words don’t have concrete meanings, sentences would make a lot less sense without them.
Determiners
Determiners are words such as articles (the, a), possessive pronouns (their, your), quantifiers (much), demonstratives (that, those), and numbers. They function as adjectives to modify nouns and go in front of a noun to show the reader whether the noun is specific or general, such as in «that coat» (specific) vs. «a coat» (general).
- Articles: a, an, the
- Demonstratives: that, this, those, these
- Possessive pronouns: my, your, their, our, ours, whose, his, hers, its, which
- Quantifiers: some, both, most, many, a few, a lot of, any, much, a little, enough, several, none, all
Conjunctions
Conjunctions connect parts of a sentence, such as items in a list, two separate sentences, or clauses and phrases to a sentence. In the previous sentence, the conjunctions are or and and.
- Conjunctions: and, but, for, yet, neither, or, so, when, although, however, as, because, before
Prepositions
Prepositions begin prepositional phrases, which contain nouns and other modifiers. Prepositions function to give more information about nouns. In the phrase «the river that flows through the woods.» The prepositional phrase is «through the woods,» and the preposition is «through.»
- Prepositions: in, of, between, on, with, by, at, without, through, over, across, around, into, within
Pronouns
Pronouns are words that stand in for nouns. Their antecedent needs to be clear, or your reader will be confused. Take «It’s so difficult» as an example. Without context, the reader has no idea what «it» refers to. In context, «Oh my gosh, this grammar lesson,» he said. «It’s so difficult,» the reader easily knows that it refers to the lesson, which is its noun antecedent.
- Pronouns: she, they, he, it, him, her, you, me, anybody, somebody, someone, anyone
Auxiliary Verbs
Auxiliary verbs are also called helping verbs. They pair with a main verb to change tense, such as when you want to express something in present continuous tense (I am walking), past perfect tense (I had walked), or future tense (I am going to walk there).
- Auxiliary verbs: be, is, am, are, have, has, do, does, did, get, got, was, were
Modals
Modal verbs express condition or possibility. It’s not certain that something is going to happen, but it might. For example, in «If I could have gone with you, I would have,» modal verbs include could and would.
- Modals: may, might, can, could, will, would, shall, should
Qualifiers
Qualifiers function like adverbs and show the degree of an adjective or verb, but they have no real meaning themselves. In the sample sentence, «I thought that somewhat new dish was pretty darn delicious,» the qualifiers are somewhat and pretty.
- Qualifiers: very, really, quite, somewhat, rather, too, pretty (much)
Question Words
It’s easy to guess what function that question words have in English. Besides forming questions, they can also appear in statements, such as in «I don’t know how in the world that happened,» where the question word is how.
- Question words: how, where, what, when, why, who
Sources
- Shea, Ammon Shea. «Bad English.» TarcherPerigee, 2014, New York.
- Pennebaker, James. «The Secret Life of Pronouns.» Bloomsbury Press, 2011, New York.
When you stress particular words more than others, it boosts your overall intelligibility. In this section, you will learn when to stress a word.
If you’re familiar with grammar and parts of speech (e.g., verbs, prepositions, and pronouns), you may start to notice what kinds of words receive the most stress. Let’s look at the following example:
He’s interested in taking economics.
Above, interested, taking, and economics all receive stress on their strong syllables, while he’s and in do not. That’s because content words (e.g., words that carry the most meaning when we speak, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) typically receive stress in phrases, while function words (e.g., words that have very little meaning, such as prepositions, articles, pronouns, and auxiliary verbs) do not.
Since stressed syllables are typically longer than unstressed syllables, sentences with the same amount of stressed syllables take nearly the same amount of time to say, regardless of the number of unstressed syllables. For example:
Kids beat drums.
The kids beat drums.
The kids beat the drums.
The kids will beat the drums.
The kids will be beating the drums.
The kids will have been beating the drums.
Despite the difference in the number of words, the time required to say each sentence is roughly the same. This is largely due to the stress of content words. Did you notice that kids, beat, and drums are the only content words?
Let’s dive deeper into the topic of content and function words. The chart below illustrates the differences between these categories.
| Content Words (more stress) | Function Words (less stress) |
| Nouns (paper, coffee, Mr. Smith) | Prepositions (it, on, for, with) |
| Main Verbs (talk, watched, need, find) | Determiners (a, the, some) |
| Adjectives (tall, blue, enchanting) | Helping verbs (I’m going to leave, She has seen it etc.) |
| Wh-words (why, what, how, etc.) | Conjunctions (for, and, but, yet, etc.) |
| Adverbs (slowly, nervously) | Most pronouns (she, it, they, them, him, etc.) |
| Negation words (no, not, isn’t, won’t) | The verb “be” (He’s a teacher, She is right., etc.) |
| Possessive pronouns (Those are hers.) | |
| This/that as pronouns (She wants this.) |
Content or Function?
Look at the list of words below. Determine whether each is a content or a function word, and click the buttons to check your answer.
| buy | |
| a | |
| his | |
| pizza | |
| don’t | |
| where | |
| and | |
| over | |
| see | |
| ally | |
| Raquel |
Here are some examples of how content and function words are used in English speaking.
Listen to how they sound to hear how the content words are stressed more than the function words. Repeat the sentences to practice.
What do you think about the black shirt?
This sentence has four content words: what, think, black, shirt
There are also four function words: do, you, about, the
I can’t call you yet, but I’m going to call you tomorrow.
This sentence has five content words: can’t, call, call, tomorrow, yet (adverb)
There are also seven function words: I, you, but, I’m, going, to, you
You try it!
Identify the content words in each sentence.
Wait for the bus.
Answer
I won’t be at the party, but Mary wants to go.
Answer
I
won’t
be at the
party
, but
Mary wants
to
go
.
The teacher forgot to send the class the notes.
Answer
The
teacher forgot
to
send
the
class
the
notes
.
Suggested Extra Speaking Practice
1. Answer the following questions out loud. Record yourself and listen to your recording. Did you appropriately stress the content words more than the function words?
What classes are you taking at Baruch?
What is your dream job?
Who is your biggest role model, and why?
There are many reasons different words may be stressed in different situations. Some of this deals with individuality in speaking, while stress can also be impacted by new and contrasting information, highlighting, and emotions. Visit our other sections on these topics to learn more about how to incorporate stress and rhythm into your conversations.
2. Below is an excerpt of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, also used in the Thought Groups section. Listen to the clip and read the transcript. Note which words receive the most stress. Are they all content words? Why do you think King might sometimes stress other words?
“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’”
Answer
“And
so
even
though
we
face
the
difficulties
of
today
and
tomorrow
, I
still
have a
dream
. It is a
dream deeply rooted
in the
American dream
. I
have
a
dream
that
one day
this
nation
will
rise up
and
live out
the
true meaning
of its
creed:
‘We
hold
these
truths
to
be self-evident
that
all men
are
created equal
.’”
3. Listen to 30 seconds of a television show you enjoy. If possible, find the transcript online. Pay attention to how the content and function words are stressed differently by the characters.
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Words don’t only mean something; they also do something. In the English language, words are grouped into word classes based on their function, i.e. what they do in a phrase or sentence. In total, there are nine word classes in English.
Word class meaning and example
All words can be categorised into classes within a language based on their function and purpose.
An example of various word classes is ‘The cat ate a cupcake quickly.’
-
The = a determiner
-
cat = a noun
-
ate = a verb
-
a = determiner
-
cupcake = noun
-
quickly = an adverb
Word class function
The function of a word class, also known as a part of speech, is to classify words according to their grammatical properties and the roles they play in sentences. By assigning words to different word classes, we can understand how they should be used in context and how they relate to other words in a sentence.
Each word class has its own unique set of characteristics and rules for usage, and understanding the function of word classes is essential for effective communication in English. Knowing our word classes allows us to create clear and grammatically correct sentences that convey our intended meaning.
Word classes in English
In English, there are four main word classes; nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These are considered lexical words, and they provide the main meaning of a phrase or sentence.
The other five word classes are; prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These are considered functional words, and they provide structural and relational information in a sentence or phrase.
Don’t worry if it sounds a bit confusing right now. Read ahead and you’ll be a master of the different types of word classes in no time!
| All word classes | Definition | Examples of word classification |
| Noun | A word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. | cat, house, plant |
| Pronoun | A word that is used in place of a noun to avoid repetition. | he, she, they, it |
| Verb | A word that expresses action, occurrence, or state of being. | run, sing, grow |
| Adjective | A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun. | blue, tall, happy |
| Adverb | A word that describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. | quickly, very |
| Preposition | A word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. | in, on, at |
| Conjunction | A word that connects words, phrases, or clauses. | and, or, but |
| Interjection | A word that expresses strong emotions or feelings. | wow, oh, ouch |
| Determiners | A word that clarifies information about the quantity, location, or ownership of the noun | Articles like ‘the’ and ‘an’, and quantifiers like ‘some’ and ‘all’. |
The four main word classes
In the English language, there are four main word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Let’s look at all the word classes in detail.
Nouns
Nouns are the words we use to describe people, places, objects, feelings, concepts, etc. Usually, nouns are tangible (touchable) things, such as a table, a person, or a building.
However, we also have abstract nouns, which are things we can feel and describe but can’t necessarily see or touch, such as love, honour, or excitement. Proper nouns are the names we give to specific and official people, places, or things, such as England, Claire, or Hoover.
Cat
House
School
Britain
Harry
Book
Hatred
‘My sister went to school.‘
Verbs
Verbs are words that show action, event, feeling, or state of being. This can be a physical action or event, or it can be a feeling that is experienced.
Lexical verbs are considered one of the four main word classes, and auxiliary verbs are not. Lexical verbs are the main verb in a sentence that shows action, event, feeling, or state of being, such as walk, ran, felt, and want, whereas an auxiliary verb helps the main verb and expresses grammatical meaning, such as has, is, and do.
Run
Walk
Swim
Curse
Wish
Help
Leave
‘She wished for a sunny day.’
Adjectives
Adjectives are words used to modify nouns, usually by describing them. Adjectives describe an attribute, quality, or state of being of the noun.
Long
Short
Friendly
Broken
Loud
Embarrassed
Dull
Boring
‘The friendly woman wore a beautiful dress.’
Fig 1. Adjectives can describe the woman and the dress
Adverbs
Adverbs are words that work alongside verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. They provide further descriptions of how, where, when, and how often something is done.
Quickly
Softly
Very
More
Too
Loudly
‘The music was too loud.’
All of the above examples are lexical word classes and carry most of the meaning in a sentence. They make up the majority of the words in the English language.
The other five word classes
The other five remaining word classes are; prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These words are considered functional words and are used to explain grammatical and structural relationships between words.
For example, prepositions can be used to explain where one object is in relation to another.
Prepositions
Prepositions are used to show the relationship between words in terms of place, time, direction, and agency.
In
At
On
Towards
To
Through
Into
By
With
‘They went through the tunnel.’
Pronouns
Pronouns take the place of a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence. They often refer to a noun that has already been mentioned and are commonly used to avoid repetition.
Chloe (noun) → she (pronoun)
Chloe’s dog → her dog (possessive pronoun)
There are several different types of pronouns; let’s look at some examples of each.
- He, she, it, they — personal pronouns
- His, hers, its, theirs, mine, ours — possessive pronouns
- Himself, herself, myself, ourselves, themselves — reflexive pronouns
- This, that, those, these — demonstrative pronouns
- Anyone, somebody, everyone, anything, something — Indefinite pronouns
- Which, what, that, who, who — Relative pronouns
‘She sat on the chair which was broken.’
Determiners
Determiners work alongside nouns to clarify information about the quantity, location, or ownership of the noun. It ‘determines’ exactly what is being referred to. Much like pronouns, there are also several different types of determiners.
- The, a, an — articles
- This, that, those — you might recognise these for demonstrative pronouns are also determiners
- One, two, three etc. — cardinal numbers
- First, second, third etc. — ordinal numbers
- Some, most, all — quantifiers
- Other, another — difference words
‘The first restaurant is better than the other.’
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are words that connect other words, phrases, and clauses together within a sentence. There are three main types of conjunctions;
-
Coordinating conjunctions — these link independent clauses together.
-
Subordinating conjunctions — these link dependent clauses to independent clauses.
- Correlative conjunctions — words that work in pairs to join two parts of a sentence of equal importance.
For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so — coordinating conjunctions
After, as, because, when, while, before, if, even though — subordinating conjunctions
Either/or, neither/nor, both/and — correlative conjunctions
‘If it rains, I’m not going out.’
Interjections
Interjections are exclamatory words used to express an emotion or a reaction. They often stand alone from the rest of the sentence and are accompanied by an exclamation mark.
Oh
Oops!
Phew!
Ahh!
‘Oh, what a surprise!’
Word class: lexical classes and function classes
A helpful way to understand lexical word classes is to see them as the building blocks of sentences. If the lexical word classes are the blocks themselves, then the function word classes are the cement holding the words together and giving structure to the sentence.
Fig 2. Lexical and functional word classes
In this diagram, the lexical classes are in blue and the function classes are in yellow. We can see that the words in blue provide the key information, and the words in yellow bring this information together in a structured way.
Word class examples
Sometimes it can be tricky to know exactly which word class a word belongs to. Some words can function as more than one word class depending on how they are used in a sentence. For this reason, we must look at words in context, i.e. how a word works within the sentence. Take a look at the following examples of word classes to see the importance of word class categorisation.
The dog will bark if you open the door.
The tree bark was dark and rugged.
Here we can see that the same word (bark) has a different meaning and different word class in each sentence. In the first example, ‘bark’ is used as a verb, and in the second as a noun (an object in this case).
I left my sunglasses on the beach.
The horse stood on Sarah’s left foot.
In the first sentence, the word ‘left’ is used as a verb (an action), and in the second, it is used to modify the noun (foot). In this case, it is an adjective.
I run every day
I went for a run
In this example, ‘run’ can be a verb or a noun.
Word Class — Key takeaways
-
We group words into word classes based on the function they perform in a sentence.
-
The four main word classes are nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. These are lexical classes that give meaning to a sentence.
-
The other five word classes are prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These are function classes that are used to explain grammatical and structural relationships between words.
-
It is important to look at the context of a sentence in order to work out which word class a word belongs to.
Frequently Asked Questions about Word Class
A word class is a group of words that have similar properties and play a similar role in a sentence.
Some examples of how some words can function as more than one word class include the way ‘run’ can be a verb (‘I run every day’) or a noun (‘I went for a run’). Similarly, ‘well’ can be an adverb (‘He plays the guitar well’) or an adjective (‘She’s feeling well today’).
The nine word classes are; Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, interjections.
Categorising words into word classes helps us to understand the function the word is playing within a sentence.
Parts of speech is another term for word classes.
The different groups of word classes include lexical classes that act as the building blocks of a sentence e.g. nouns. The other word classes are function classes that act as the ‘glue’ and give grammatical information in a sentence e.g. prepositions.
The word classes for all, that, and the is:
‘All’ = determiner (quantifier)
‘That’ = pronoun and/or determiner (demonstrative pronoun)
‘The’ = determiner (article)
Final Word Class Quiz
Word Class Quiz — Teste dein Wissen
Question
A word can only belong to one type of noun. True or false?
Show answer
Answer
This is false. A word can belong to multiple categories of nouns and this may change according to the context of the word.
Show question
Question
Name the two principal categories of nouns.
Show answer
Answer
The two principal types of nouns are ‘common nouns’ and ‘proper nouns’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following is an example of a proper noun?
Show answer
Question
Name the 6 types of common nouns discussed in the text.
Show answer
Answer
Concrete nouns, abstract nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, collective nouns, and compound nouns.
Show question
Question
What is the difference between a concrete noun and an abstract noun?
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Answer
A concrete noun is a thing that physically exists. We can usually touch this thing and measure its proportions. An abstract noun, however, does not physically exist. It is a concept, idea, or feeling that only exists within the mind.
Show question
Question
Pick out the concrete noun from the following:
Show answer
Question
Pick out the abstract noun from the following:
Show answer
Question
What is the difference between a countable and an uncountable noun? Can you think of an example for each?
Show answer
Answer
A countable noun is a thing that can be ‘counted’, i.e. it can exist in the plural. Some examples include ‘bottle’, ‘dog’ and ‘boy’. These are often concrete nouns.
An uncountable noun is something that can not be counted, so you often cannot place a number in front of it. Examples include ‘love’, ‘joy’, and ‘milk’.
Show question
Question
Pick out the collective noun from the following:
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Question
What is the collective noun for a group of sheep?
Show answer
Answer
The collective noun is a ‘flock’, as in ‘flock of sheep’.
Show question
Question
The word ‘greenhouse’ is a compound noun. True or false?
Show answer
Answer
This is true. The word ‘greenhouse’ is a compound noun as it is made up of two separate words ‘green’ and ‘house’. These come together to form a new word.
Show question
Question
What are the adjectives in this sentence?: ‘The little boy climbed up the big, green tree’
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Answer
The adjectives are ‘little’ and ‘big’, and ‘green’ as they describe features about the nouns.
Show question
Question
Place the adjectives in this sentence into the correct order: the wooden blue big ship sailed across the Indian vast scary ocean.
Show answer
Answer
The big, blue, wooden ship sailed across the vast, scary, Indian ocean.
Show question
Question
What are the 3 different positions in which an adjective can be placed?
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Answer
An adjective can be placed before a noun (pre-modification), after a noun (post-modification), or following a verb as a complement.
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Question
In this sentence, does the adjective pre-modify or post-modify the noun? ‘The unicorn is angry’.
Show answer
Answer
The adjective ‘angry’ post-modifies the noun ‘unicorn’.
Show question
Question
In this sentence, does the adjective pre-modify or post-modify the noun? ‘It is a scary unicorn’.
Show answer
Answer
The adjective ‘scary’ pre-modifies the noun ‘unicorn’.
Show question
Question
What kind of adjectives are ‘purple’ and ‘shiny’?
Show answer
Answer
‘Purple’ and ‘Shiny’ are qualitative adjectives as they describe a quality or feature of a noun
Show question
Question
What kind of adjectives are ‘ugly’ and ‘easy’?
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Answer
The words ‘ugly’ and ‘easy’ are evaluative adjectives as they give a subjective opinion on the noun.
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Question
Which of the following adjectives is an absolute adjective?
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Question
Which of these adjectives is a classifying adjective?
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Question
Convert the noun ‘quick’ to its comparative form.
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Answer
The comparative form of ‘quick’ is ‘quicker’.
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Question
Convert the noun ‘slow’ to its superlative form.
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Answer
The comparative form of ‘slow’ is ‘slowest’.
Show question
Question
What is an adjective phrase?
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Answer
An adjective phrase is a group of words that is ‘built’ around the adjective (it takes centre stage in the sentence). For example, in the phrase ‘the dog is big’ the word ‘big’ is the most important information.
Show question
Question
Give 2 examples of suffixes that are typical of adjectives.
Show answer
Answer
Suffixes typical of adjectives include -able, -ible, -ful, -y, -less, -ous, -some, -ive, -ish, -al.
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Question
What is the difference between a main verb and an auxiliary verb?
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Answer
A main verb is a verb that can stand on its own and carries most of the meaning in a verb phrase. For example, ‘run’, ‘find’. Auxiliary verbs cannot stand alone, instead, they work alongside a main verb and ‘help’ the verb to express more grammatical information e.g. tense, mood, possibility.
Show question
Question
What is the difference between a primary auxiliary verb and a modal auxiliary verb?
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Answer
Primary auxiliary verbs consist of the various forms of ‘to have’, ‘to be’, and ‘to do’ e.g. ‘had’, ‘was’, ‘done’. They help to express a verb’s tense, voice, or mood. Modal auxiliary verbs show possibility, ability, permission, or obligation. There are 9 auxiliary verbs including ‘could’, ‘will’, might’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following are primary auxiliary verbs?
-
Is
-
Play
-
Have
-
Run
-
Does
-
Could
Show answer
Answer
The primary auxiliary verbs in this list are ‘is’, ‘have’, and ‘does’. They are all forms of the main primary auxiliary verbs ‘to have’, ‘to be’, and ‘to do’. ‘Play’ and ‘run’ are main verbs and ‘could’ is a modal auxiliary verb.
Show question
Question
Name 6 out of the 9 modal auxiliary verbs.
Show answer
Answer
Answers include: Could, would, should, may, might, can, will, must, shall
Show question
Question
‘The fairies were asleep’. In this sentence, is the verb ‘were’ a linking verb or an auxiliary verb?
Show answer
Answer
The word ‘were’ is used as a linking verb as it stands alone in the sentence. It is used to link the subject (fairies) and the adjective (asleep).
Show question
Question
What is the difference between dynamic verbs and stative verbs?
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Answer
A dynamic verb describes an action or process done by a noun or subject. They are thought of as ‘action verbs’ e.g. ‘kick’, ‘run’, ‘eat’. Stative verbs describe the state of being of a person or thing. These are states that are not necessarily physical action e.g. ‘know’, ‘love’, ‘suppose’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following are dynamic verbs and which are stative verbs?
-
Drink
-
Prefer
-
Talk
-
Seem
-
Understand
-
Write
Show answer
Answer
The dynamic verbs are ‘drink’, ‘talk’, and ‘write’ as they all describe an action. The stative verbs are ‘prefer’, ‘seem’, and ‘understand’ as they all describe a state of being.
Show question
Question
What is an imperative verb?
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Answer
Imperative verbs are verbs used to give orders, give instructions, make a request or give warning. They tell someone to do something. For example, ‘clean your room!’.
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Question
Inflections give information about tense, person, number, mood, or voice. True or false?
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Question
What information does the inflection ‘-ing’ give for a verb?
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Answer
The inflection ‘-ing’ is often used to show that an action or state is continuous and ongoing.
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Question
How do you know if a verb is irregular?
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Answer
An irregular verb does not take the regular inflections, instead the whole word is spelt a different way. For example, begin becomes ‘began’ or ‘begun’. We can’t add the regular past tense inflection -ed as this would become ‘beginned’ which doesn’t make sense.
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Question
Suffixes can never signal what word class a word belongs to. True or false?
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Answer
False. Suffixes can signal what word class a word belongs to. For example, ‘-ify’ is a common suffix for verbs (‘identity’, ‘simplify’)
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Question
A verb phrase is built around a noun. True or false?
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Answer
False. A verb phrase is a group of words that has a main verb along with any other auxiliary verbs that ‘help’ the main verb. For example, ‘could eat’ is a verb phrase as it contains a main verb (‘could’) and an auxiliary verb (‘could’).
Show question
Question
Which of the following are multi-word verbs?
-
Shake
-
Rely on
-
Dancing
-
Look up to
Show answer
Answer
The verbs ‘rely on’ and ‘look up to’ are multi-word verbs as they consist of a verb that has one or more prepositions or particles linked to it.
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Question
What is the difference between a transition verb and an intransitive verb?
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Answer
Transitive verbs are verbs that require an object in order to make sense. For example, the word ‘bring’ requires an object that is brought (‘I bring news’). Intransitive verbs do not require an object to complete the meaning of the sentence e.g. ‘exist’ (‘I exist’).
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Answer
An adverb is a word that gives more information about a verb, adjective, another adverb, or a full clause.
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What are the 3 ways we can use adverbs?
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We can use adverbs to modify a word (modifying adverbs), to intensify a word (intensifying adverbs), or to connect two clauses (connecting adverbs).
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What are modifying adverbs?
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Modifying adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They add further information about the word.
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‘Additionally’, ‘likewise’, and ‘consequently’ are examples of connecting adverbs. True or false?
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True! Connecting adverbs are words used to connect two independent clauses.
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What are intensifying adverbs?
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Intensifying adverbs are words used to strengthen the meaning of an adjective, another adverb, or a verb. In other words, they ‘intensify’ another word.
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Which of the following are intensifying adverbs?
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Calmly
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Incredibly
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Enough
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Greatly
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The intensifying adverbs are ‘incredibly’ and ‘greatly’. These strengthen the meaning of a word.
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Name the main types of adverbs
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The main adverbs are; adverbs of place, adverbs of time, adverbs of manner, adverbs of frequency, adverbs of degree, adverbs of probability, and adverbs of purpose.
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What are adverbs of time?
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Adverbs of time are the ‘when?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘when is the action done?’ e.g. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’
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Which of the following are adverbs of frequency?
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Usually
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Patiently
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Occasionally
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Nowhere
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The adverbs of frequency are ‘usually’ and ‘occasionally’. They are the ‘how often?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘how often is the action done?’.
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What are adverbs of place?
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Adverbs of place are the ‘where?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘where is the action done?’. For example, ‘outside’ or ‘elsewhere’.
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Which of the following are adverbs of manner?
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Never
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Carelessly
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Kindly
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Inside
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The words ‘carelessly’ and ‘kindly’ are adverbs of manner. They are the ‘how?’ adverbs that answer the question ‘how is the action done?’.
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There are four main sentence functions in the English language: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative.
When we describe a sentence based on its function, we are talking about its purpose. If you want to identify the functions in a sentence, just ask yourself, ‘What is the point of this sentence? What is it trying to do?‘ This article will explore the definition and examples of sentence functions.
What is a Sentence Function?
What is a sentence function? (That’s an interrogative sentence)
A sentence function is the purpose of a sentence. (That’s a declarative sentence)
How wonderful! (That’s an exclamative sentence)
Read on to find out more. (And that’s an imperative sentence)
Sentence functions are sometimes referred to as sentence types.
What are the four main sentence functions?
Now that we know what a sentence function is, let’s delve a little deeper into the four main sentence functions.
First, take a look at the basic purpose of each sentence function.
-
Declarative sentence (makes a statement) E.g. It’s warm in Thailand.
-
Interrogative sentence (asks a question) E.g. Where is Thailand?
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Exclamative sentence (makes an exclamation) E.g. How beautiful is Thailand!
- Imperative sentence (gives a command) E.g. Stop talking about Thailand!
Let’s look at each sentence function in more detail, with examples of how a certain type function in a sentence appears.
Declarative
Declarative sentences are the most common of all sentence functions. We use declarative sentences to:
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Make a statement.
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Give an opinion.
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Provide an explanation.
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Give facts.
We use declarative sentences every day — in informal writing, formal writing, poetry, literature, daily speech, advertising — just about everywhere!
Let’s take a look at some examples of declarative sentences.
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I like singing.
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I don’t like singing.
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It’s cold because he forgot to put the heating on.
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The capital of India is New Delhi.
Fig 1. Example of declarative sentence
Interrogative
Interrogative sentences are used to ask questions and typically require an answer. There are a few different types of interrogative sentences:
-
Yes/No interrogatives.
-
Alternative interrogatives.
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WH interrogatives.
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Negative interrogatives.
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Tag questions.
Interrogative sentences usually begin with a WH question word (who, what, where, when, why, and how) or an auxiliary verb (are, do, can, may, etc.), and always end with a question mark (?).
Interrogatives that start with a subject are usually tag questions and are commonly used in colloquial speech. For example, ‘Butterflies are insects, aren’t they?‘, Or, more informally: ‘Butterflies are insects, right?‘
Let’s take a look at some examples of interrogative sentences.
-
Where is the bathroom?
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Have you seen the latest episode of The Crown?
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You don’t eat meat, do you?
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Do you prefer tea or coffee?
Imperative
Imperative sentences are mainly used to give a command or make a demand and can be presented in several ways.
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Giving instructions.
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Offering advice.
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Making a wish on behalf of someone else.
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Extending an invitation.
-
Giving a command.
There is often no subject present when forming imperative sentences because the subject is assumed to be you, the reader, or the listener. Imperative sentences can end in either a full stop (.) or an exclamation mark (!), depending on the urgency of the command.
Here are some examples of imperative sentences:
-
Sit down!
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Set the oven to 180 degrees.
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Try the other door.
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Have a nice day.
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Please, take a seat.
Fig 2. Imperative sentence
Exclamative
Exclamative sentences are used to express strong feelings and opinions, such as surprise, excitement, and anger. Exclamative sentences must contain the words What or How and usually end with an exclamation mark (!).
Here are some examples of exclamative sentences:
-
‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ (William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1605)
-
What a nice surprise!
-
Oh, how lovely!
Not all sentences that end with an exclamation mark are exclamative sentences. Sentences that do not contain the words What or How are simply different sentence functions driven by emotion and given an exclamation mark to highlight that emotion; we call these exclamations. Declarative sentences made with emotion and ending with exclamation marks are called exclamatory sentences.
Sentence functions and sentence structures, what’s the difference?
What is the difference between a sentence function and a sentence structure? Sentences can be defined in two ways: by their purpose and by their structure. Be careful not to confuse sentence functions with sentence structures!
Sentence structures are how we form sentences, such as simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences.
Let’s break down some sentences based on their function and their structure to highlight the differences.
‘Before you come in, take off your shoes.‘
Function = imperative sentence
This is an imperative sentence because its purpose is to give a command.
Structure = Complex sentence
‘I was feeling hungry, so I ate a sandwich.‘
Function = Declarative sentence
This is a declarative sentence because it is declaring a fact.
Structure = Compound sentence
This is a compound sentence because it contains two independent clauses.
Sentence Functions — Key takeaways
-
Sentence functions describe the purpose of a sentence.
-
There are four main sentence functions: Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, and Exclamative.
-
Sentence functions are sometimes referred to as sentence types.
-
Sentence functions are different from sentence structures.
This may be a silly question but…
Say you have a sentence like:
The quick brown fox
Or you might get a sentence like:
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
The simple regexp (w*) finds the first word «The» and puts it in a group.
For the first sentence, you could write (w*)s*(w*)s*(w*)s*(w*)s* to put each word in its own group, but that assumes you know the number of words in the sentence.
Is it possible to write a regular expression that puts each word in any arbitrary sentence into its own group? It would be nice if you could do something like (?:(w*)s*)* to have it group each instance of (w*), but that doesn’t work.
I am doing this in Python, and my use case is obviously a little more complex than «The quick brown fox», so it would be nifty if Regex could do this in one line, but if that’s not possible then I assume the next best solution is to loop over all the matches using re.findall() or something similar.
Thanks for any insight you may have.
Edit: For completeness’s sake here’s my actual use case and how I solved it using your help. Thanks again.
>>> s = '1 0 5 test1 5 test2 5 test3 5 test4 5 test5'
>>> s = re.match(r'^d+sd+s?(.*)', s).group(1)
>>> print s
5 test1 5 test2 5 test3 5 test4 5 test5
>>> list = re.findall(r'd+s(w+)', s)
>>> print list
['test1', 'test2', 'test3', 'test4', 'test5']
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
See also[edit]
- Content word, words that name objects of reality and their qualities
- Grammaticalization, process by which words representing objects and actions transform to become grammatical markers
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
Further reading[edit]
- Kordić, Snježana (2001). Wörter im Grenzbereich von Lexikon und Grammatik im Serbokroatischen [Serbo-Croatian Words on the Border Between Lexicon and Grammar]. Studies in Slavic Linguistics ; 18 (in German). Munich: Lincom Europa. p. 280. ISBN 3-89586-954-6. LCCN 2005530313. OCLC 47905097. OL 2863539W. CROSBI 426497. Summary.
External links[edit]
- Short list of 225 English function words
The disticntion between content words and function words is one of the key aspects of English stress and connected speech.
Content words are those which carry clear meaning, such as:
MAIN VERBS: go, speak, think
NOUNS: house, word, idea
ADJECTIVES: big, difficult, interesting
ADVERBS: slowly, clearly, quite
Function words are grammatical words that glue a sentence together, such as:
AUXILIARY VERBS: are, have, can
PREPOSITIONS: to, from, for
CONJUNCTIONS: and, but, if
PRONOUNS: her, I, their
ARTICLES: a/an, the
Content & Function Words in Connected Speech
In connected speech, function words tend to be pronounced as weak forms with one of the weak vowels /ə,ɪ,i,u/.
If a function word is stressed, it will be pronounced with a strong vowel sound, meaning that many function words have 2 possible pronunciations: a weak version, and a strong version. These are shown for some function words below:
EXAMPLE /Strong,Weak/
are /ɑː,ə/
have /hav,(h)əv/
were /wəː,wə/
to /tuː,tə/
for /fɔː,fə/
but /bʌt,bət/
been /biːn,bɪn/
he /hiː,(h)i/
Sentence Stress
In a sentence consisting of content and function words, the content words are typically stressed, and the function words are typically weak:
Are we going to the shops?
However, stress is always related to meaning, so the above sentence could have stress on ‘we’ and not on the two content words:
Are we going to the shops?
In this example, the concept of ‘going to the shops’ is already in the conversation and the focus of the meaning is on ‘we’. The strong pronunciation of the function word is then used.
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Given a long sentence, reverse each word of the sentence individually in the sentence itself. Examples:
Input : Geeks For Geeks is good to learn Output : skeeG roF skeeG si doog ot nrael Input : Split Reverse Join Output : tilpS esreveR nioJ
We shall use Python’s built in library function to reverse each word individually in the string itself. Prerequisites : 1. split() 2. Reversing Techniques in Python 3. List Comprehension Method in python 4. join()
- First split the sentence into list of words.
- Reverse each word of the string in the list individually.
- Join the words in the list to form a new sentence.
Below is the implementation of above idea.
Python3
def reverseWordSentence(Sentence):
words = Sentence.split(" ")
newWords = [word[::-1] for word in words]
newSentence = " ".join(newWords)
return newSentence
Sentence = "GeeksforGeeks is good to learn"
print(reverseWordSentence(Sentence))
Output:
skeeGrofskeeG si doog ot nrael
Python is well known for its short codes. We shall do the same task but with lesser line of codes.
Python3
def reverseWordSentence(Sentence):
return ' '.join(word[::-1] for word in Sentence.split(" "))
Sentence = "Geeks for Geeks"
print(reverseWordSentence(Sentence))
Output:
skeeG rof skeeG
Approach#3: Using re.sub() function We can use re.sub() function to replace the words in sentence with reversed words in sentence. We capture the word in string with the help of group method and replace it with reversed word.
Python3
import re
def reverseWordSentence(Sentence):
newSentence = re.sub('(w+)', lambda x : x.group()[::-1], Sentence)
return newSentence
Sentence = "GeeksforGeeks is good to learn"
print(reverseWordSentence(Sentence))
Output:
skeeGrofskeeG si doog ot nrael
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