Introduction to Words

Agenda

● Grammatical units
● What are words?
● Lexical Words
● Function Words
● Word Structure
● Practice
Grammatical Units: Meaningful elements which combine
with each other in a structural pattern
MORPHEME: The smallest meaningful unit in a language. A morpheme can be a word in
inself or an affix. Affixes can be prefixes or suffixes. (Free morphemes vs Bound
Morphemes)

WORD: The arbitrary relationship between a signifier and a signified. A word consists of
one or more morphemes. It is the basic element of language.

PHRASE/GROUP: A phrase consists of one or more words.

CLAUSE: A clause consists of one or more phrases. They can be finite or nonfinite. They
can be independent or dependent.

SENTENCE/CLAUSE COMPLEX: A sentence has at least one clause. It´s a coplete unit of
thought. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a final punctuation mark.
If she washes up all these things, somebody else can dry them.

How many sentences?

How many clauses?

How many phrases?

How many words?

How many morphemes?

Check your answers!
1 Sentence: If she washes up all these things, somebody else can dry them.

2 Clauses: If she washes all these things/ somebody else can dry them.

7 Phrases: If / she/ washes up/ all these things/ somebody else/ can dry/ them.

12 Words: If/ she / washes/ up/ all/ these/ things/ somebody/ else/ can/ dry/
them.

15 Morphemes: If/ she/ wash/es (bound inflectional morpheme)/ up/ all/ these/
thing/ s (bound inflectional morpheme)/ some/ body/ else/ can/ dry/ them.
 What are Words?
Orthographic words: The ones that appear in written language where they are
separated by spaces.

Grammatical words: A word falls into one grammatical word class or “part of
speech”. E.g.: a verb, a noun etc.

Words can be classified into: LEXICAL WORDS, FUNCTION WORDS and

INSERTS.
Content Words
✓ They are the main carriers of information in a text

✓ They belong to OPEN CLASSES

✓ They have a complex internal structure and can be composed of several parts

✓ They can be the head of phrases

✓ They are generally stressed in speech

✓ They remain if a sentence is compressed in a headline

✓ They are NOUNS, LEXICAL VERBS, ADJECTIVES and ADVERBS

Content Words
Function Words
They can be categorized in terms of word classes such as PREPOSITIONS,
COORDINATORS, AUXILIARY VERBS and PRONOUNS.

They usually indicate meaning relationships and help to interpret units

containing lexical words, by showing how the units are related to each other.

They belong to CLOSED CLASSES

Individual function words tend to occur frequently, and in almost any type of
text.
Function Words
Reminder
Inserts
✓ They are found mainly in spoken language.

✓ They tend to be inserted freely in a text.

✓They are often marked off by a break in intonation in speech, or by a

punctuation mark in writing.

✓They generally carry emotional and discoursal meanings and are used to
express the speaker's emotional response to a situation.

✓ They are generally simple in form, though they have an atypical pronunciation.
The Structure of Words: Morphology
Lexical words can consist of a single
morpheme ( STEM) or they can have
a more complex structure created by
a process of INFLECTION,
DERIVATION or COMPOUNDING.
Inflectional Morphology
Derivational Morphology
Compounding: Words that contain more than one stem.

Structure Example

noun + noun chairman, girlfriend

verb + noun cookbook, guesswork

adjective + noun bluebird, flatfish

noun + adjective hadlong, watertight

 ☑ There are three major families of
words: lexical words, function words
and inserts.

☑ These families are broken down

into word classes , such as nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs and

Review prepositions.

☑ Words belong to closed classes or

open classes.

☑ The different word classes have

different morphology.

☑ Different registers use various

classes of words to different extents.
Activity 1
Decide which words are function and content words in the following sentences.

1. Mary has lived in England for ten years.

2. He's going to fly to Chicago next week.
3. I don't understand this chapter of the book.
4. The children will be swimming in the ocean this time next week.
5. John had eaten lunch before his colleague arrived.
6. The best time to study is early in the morning or late in the evening.
7. The trees along the river are beginning to blossom.
8. Our friends called us yesterday and asked if we'd like to visit them next month.
9. You'll be happy to know that she's decided to take the position.
10. I won't give away your secret.
Now, compare your answers!
Content words are in bold.

1. Mary has lived in England for ten years.

2. He's going to fly to Chicago next week.
3. I don't understand this chapter of the book.
4. The children will be swimming in the ocean at five o'clock.
5. John had eaten lunch before his colleague arrived.
6. The best time to study is early in the morning or late in the evening.
7. The trees along the river are beginning to blossom.
8. Our friends called us yesterday and asked if we'd like to visit them next month.
9. You'll be happy to know that she's decided to take the position.
10. I won't give away your secret.