Function word

Function word is a term used in linguistics to refer to a type of word that has little lexical meaning but instead serves to express grammatical relationships with 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 serve as important elements to the structure of sentences.

Types of Function Words

Function words might be prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, grammatical articles, or interjections.

• Prepositions are function words that express spatial or temporal relations, such as 'in', 'at', 'on', 'over', 'through', etc.
• Pronouns are used in place of a noun that is already known or can be understood easily. They include words like 'he', 'they', 'anyone', 'that', etc.
• Auxiliary verbs are used to form tenses, moods, voices, aspects, etc. of other verbs. They include words like 'be', 'do', 'have', etc.
• Conjunctions are used to connect words, phrases, or clauses. They include words like 'and', 'but', 'if', etc.
• Grammatical articles are used to specify grammatical definiteness of the noun. In English, they include 'the', 'a', and 'an'.
• Interjections are words that express strong emotion. They include words like 'oh', 'wow', 'ugh', etc.

Role in Language

Function words play a crucial role in language as they provide the grammatical structure to sentences, allowing us to convey more than just content but also relationships between content and mood or attitude. They are essential for the construction of declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in English and many other languages.

See Also

• Content word
• Closed-class word
• Parts of speech