what are function (or closed-class) words?
• Function words are words that create grammatical structure. They all belong to one or another of the following word classes: preposition, pronoun, determiner, conjunction, modal auxiliary, primary verb, adverb. In some cases (for example, the articles ‘the’ and ‘a’) function words have no ‘lexical’ meaning: in other words, their meaning could not be learned by looking them up in a dictionary but only by coming to understand how they combine with other words to create grammatical structures. Other types of function words (prepositions and conjunctions for example) do have lexical or ‘dictionary’ meaning but they also have ‘structural’ or ‘grammatical meaning.’
• Function words belong to a ‘closed class,’and in strict grammatical terminology are properly referred to as “closed-class words” Function words are said to belong to a “closed” class because it is unusual for a new function word to be created or for an old one to disappear. Words that are not function words—ones whose whole meaning can be given by a dictionary definition—are called ’content words’ or ’lexical words’. They belong to an ‘open system’ to which new words are often added and from which old ones are often dropped.
where did this list come from?
•The words on the list were originally culled from the easy versions of the paired stories but since then the list has been greatly expanded using A Comprehensive Grammar of Contemporary English as a guide. The lists of determiners, primary verbs, modal auxiliaries and pronouns are, or attempt to be, complete. The lists of prepositions and closed-class adverbsis are incomplete because of the large number of words in these classes and also because of the existence of many multi-word items.
what is the purpose of this list?
• Like the other lists, this one is not offered with any particular purpose in mind. It seems though that it could, at the very least, be useful to teachers preparing diagnostic vocabulary materials or testing vocabulary after having worked on the easy versions of the stories. It might also be useful, to teachers and students as a source of examples of members of the various functional word classes.