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Content Words Structure Words

Content words like nouns, verbs, adjectives are best explained in terms of grammar and can vary greatly in frequency and pronunciation. They make up the large majority of words in English. Structure words like prepositions, articles, auxiliaries are a limited set that are mostly very common, short, and grammatically defined. They are less likely to vary in pronunciation and stress and can be invented more easily than content words.

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El Nino
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72 views

Content Words Structure Words

Content words like nouns, verbs, adjectives are best explained in terms of grammar and can vary greatly in frequency and pronunciation. They make up the large majority of words in English. Structure words like prepositions, articles, auxiliaries are a limited set that are mostly very common, short, and grammatically defined. They are less likely to vary in pronunciation and stress and can be invented more easily than content words.

Uploaded by

El Nino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Content Words

Structure Words

- are best explained in the grammar, i.e. in terms of


- are best explained and listed in the dictionary, like
they fit intosentences: the is a definite article that g
'book, teddy bear or encapsulate
with nouns

- exist in large numbers, tens or hundreds of thousands, - are very limited in number, consisting of 220 or s
English
as seen in any dictionary

- vary in frequency from common words like beer to


- are mostly very high frequency, for example all the top
very rare like adduction (6 times in a 100 million
for English and 45% of the top 100 are structure words
words)
- are used more in written language

- are used more in spoken language

- are more likely to be preceded by a pause in speech I - are less likely to be preceded by a pause in speech I
like bananas, perhaps because there are more to the referee, perhaps because there are less of them
choose from
choose from

- consist of Nouns (glass), Verbs (move), Adjectives - consist of Prepositions (to), Articles the), Auxilia
(glossy) etc
(can) etc

- are always pronounced and spelled in essentially the


- vary in pronunciation for emphasisetc; have can be
same way; tree is always said with the same
as /hQv/, as /hv/ with a change of vowel and as /v/ (ve
consonants and vowel
- usually have a fixed stress or stresses; theatre is - are usually unstressed but given stress for emphasis
always theatre /'Tit/) never theatre /Ti't:/
Ive done it/I have done it/I have done it
- usually have more than two letters, as in eye, two, - can consist of one or two letters, as in I, to, in
inn

- starting in th are pronounced with a voiceless th /T/ - starting in th are pronounced with a voiced th /D/ t
think, theme
them, there

- can never be invented, apart from changes over time.


- can always be invented I heard vagueity on the attempt was per for he/she, which has never caught o
radio this morning. Virtually all the new words coming
into the language say cyberpunk, are content words.

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