Morfologija, 3/02/14.

WORDS IN ENGLISH
Definition
To start the discussion on how it is difficult to define words we resort to Vidanovi's example
SHIP SAILS TODAY! Function & Meaning. Two possible meanings:
a) Ship sails today a newspaper headline
b) Ship sails today a full-fledged sentence of English
The interpretations depend on how the the words and their functions are understood.
F. Palmer: Time flies.
You can't. They fly too fast.
N. Chomsky: a) Flying planes can be dangerous.
b) Visiting relatives can be a nuisance.
Vidanovi:

a) They are murdering peasants.

b) They are encouraging reports.

All these sentences can have two interpretations. Which ones?

It is not easy to define words. There are at least three possible answers to this query:
SEMANTIC APPROACH words can be seen as conceptual wholes or as units of meaning
PHONOLOGICAL APPROACH a word may be marked by pauses or by some features of
the language sound
STRUCTURAL APPROACH words are viewed as indivisible units in isolation
(Bloomfield: a word is a minimal free form)
--------------TENTATIVE EXPLANATION a word is the smallest unit of language which has its own
relatively stable features (both phonological and semantic)
Types of words
There are four types of morphological structures defining four types of words.
The first type of words is called simple. A root + an inflectional suffix: books, nicer, cheapest
The second type of words is called complex (derived). They contain at least one derivational
suffix as their immediate constituent: helplessness, lover, singer
The third type of words is called compound. These words contain two or more words:
textbook, mother-in-law, football-player
The fourth type of words is called compound-complex. They contain one compound and one
derivational affix: outsider, dry-cleaner, postage-stamp, ex-housewife etc.
Decide upon the type of the following words:
uneasy
disprove
cigarette-lighter
highway

receive
rebroadcast
shoemaker
takes
Function (grammatical) vs. content (lexical) words
(empty vs. full words)
all content words: Curious, man, stand, window, idle, watch, busy, people, come, go, street
+
the help of grammatical words
=
a) The curious man stood by the window idly watching the busy people coming and going in
the street.
b) Come stand by the window busy man and watch the curious people who are going idly up
the street.
c) Why are the curious people standing in the street idly watching that busy man come and go
through the window.
d) This curious street goes by some window where people can stand and idly watch busy men
coming
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, though some adverbs are function words
(e.g. then, 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 have little interest in lexical words.
Function words may 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 may or may not be inflected or may have affixes.
They 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 word, that is nouns,
verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, new words may be formed readily (such as slang words,
technical terms, adoptions and adaptations of foreign words). See neologism.
Each function word 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
position 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[1]. In English, only function words begin with voiced th- [] (see
Pronunciation of English th).
Here follows a list of the type of words included in 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
auxiliary verbs - forming part of the conjugation (pattern of the tenses of main verbs) are
always inflected
interjections - sometimes called "filled pauses", are uninflected
particles - convey the attitude of the speaker and are uninflected, as if, then, well, however,
thus, etc.
expletives - set up sentences, and other functions, It is, There are, etc.
pro-sentences for instance yes, okay, etc.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_word"

Content & Function

Words

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Children and foreign travellers learn Mistakes with the function words
content words first when they begin to can be more problematic, as the
speak. These are the ones which carry following passage shows:
the lexical meaning - hotel, beer,
Editors of the Guide were sued by
double room.
the families of those who had died as
Function words carry the
a result of taking the entry on the
grammatical meaning - the, in, where,
planet Traal literally...
when.
(it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts
often make a very good meal for
It is easy to guess or make up a
visiting tourists" instead of
meaning for content words.
"Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often
'Jabberwocky' is a nonsense poem, but make a very good meal of visiting

it causes no real difficulty of

understanding.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
'Through the Looking Glass', by Lewis
Carroll
Humpty Dumpty explains to us quite
easily that 'brillig' means four o'clock
in the afternoon, and that 'slithy' is a
combination of 'lithe' and 'slimy'. We
work out lexical meanings all the time
from context, as long as the
grammatical relationship of the words
is clear.

tourists").
'The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe',
by Douglas Adams

Identify the most important

function words in this line of
Tennyson's:
To strive, to seek, to find and not to
yield.

Answer: and and not - these define

the sense of the whole line

In order to form a proper English sentence one needs several devices: word order, prosodic
pattern, grammatical (function) words, derivational contrasts, inflections There are around
200 function words in English. Grammatical words posses structural meaning.
Content words can be altered a little by ways of inflection (boy, boys, boys, walked,
walking)
Grammatical words are unchangeable.
Closed and open set