UNIT 1

FUNCTION WORDS AND CONTENT WORDS

A. Function words
Function words are those that often have little meaning in the dictionary' sense
but which serve important functions in relating other words in the language to
each other. By ' function words ' we mean words that do not belong to one of
the four major pails of speech in English ( noun, verb, adjective, adverb ).
Their purpose is not only to express meaning but to relate other words to each
other. These are the words you must know in order to speak or understand
English with any fluency at all.
Among the function words are articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions,
prepositions, pronouns, substitute nouns, intensifiers and other specialized
expressions. They also include numerals, days of the week, and months of the
year.

1. Articles
This is the traditional term for a. an, and the. Some and any should be included
among articles.

2. Auxiliary Verbs
These are the 'helping' verbs that can be combined with various parts of other
verbs to make verb phrases. The most common auxiliary verbs are be,
have and do. In addition, we have the modals : can., could, may, might, must,
and shall. Should, will, would, as well as dare, and need under certain
conditions. The phrases ought to, used to, and (be) supposed to are included
because they resemble modals.

3. Conjunctions
Conjunctions jo in various parts of sentence together. There are two kinds of
conjunctions: coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.

a. Coordinating conjunctions
These join matching structures, that is, they join nouns to nouns, verbs to
verbs, adjectives to adjectives and so on. They are: and, but, (either).. .or,
(neither). .. nor.

b. Subordinating Conjunctions.
These are the words that introduce adjectival and adverbial clauses The
constructions they introduce contain subjects and verbs, but cannot stand alone
as independent sentences.

4. Prepositions
These make up an extremely important class of function words. The
prepositions in the list of function words are :
about before for out until
above behind from outside up
across below in over upon
after beside inside since with
against between into through within
along beyond of throughout without
among to around down during
off toward as on under
at except onto underneath
5. Pronouns
These words take the place of nouns. They include personal and possessive
pronouns.

6. Substitute Nouns
These expressions resemble pronouns in that they echo, or replace a noun in
a contact, but for grammatical reason it is convenient to separate them from
the pronouns.

These words are:

all the (least) one
another less ( the) other
any (a) little others
both (a) lot several
either lots some
Enough many such
(a) few more that/ those
(a great) deal most this/ these
much none

7. Intensifiers
These are traditionally called adverbs, but they behave in special ways
and are better treated separately. They come just before adjectives and
adverbs (except for enough, which follows them) and express a degree of
quality named by the latter word.
Here are the ones on the list : almost, awfully, enough, fairly, hardly, just,
pretty, quite, rather, really, right, scarcely, somewhat, terribly , too.

8. Special Expressions
a. The indefinite pronouns : anybody, anyone, anything, everybody, nobody,
nothing, etc.
b. Indefinite adverbs: anyhow, anywhere, somehow.
c. Question words: how, what, when, where, which, who, whom, whose,
why etc.
d. The 'ever' words: whatever, whenever, wherever, etc.
e. The reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, herself , etc.
f. Miscellaneous: no, O.K., please, yes

B. Content Words

Beside the function words above, we call the rest of words in English "the
content words". These words name and describe the infinitive number of
things, persons. events, and processes that speakers of English want to
talk about.
Content words can be divided into three general classes: (1) words
naming things, ideas, entities. (2) words naming actions , and (3) words
used to describe the qualities of those things or actions. These divisions
correspond closely to the traditional parts of speech: nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs.