Contents & Structural Words
Words are two kinds:
1. Contents words
2. Structural words
1. Contents Words: Contents words are those that stand for:
a) Things, ideas and entities. They are called nouns.
b) Actions: They are called verbs.
c) Qualities: They are called adjectives and adverbs.
So, contents words comprises nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and they are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or the sense. So, they are real contents of the sentences.
2. Structural Words: Structural words are those which have little or no meaning in themselves, but they bind together other words to make phrases, clauses and sentences.
So, these words are not very important, rather they are very small and simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form.
The following is the list of Structural words:
a) All the pronouns: I, we, you, they, he, she, it, etc.
b) All the prepositions: on, under, with, behind, etc.
c) All the auxiliary words: do, does, did, shall, will, etc.
d) All the relatives: whose, which, where, etc.
e) Some structural adjectives: this, that, some, any, etc.
f) Some structural adverbs: ago, again, even, more, etc.
Structural words are also called function words as they are so important for the functioning of the language.
Structural words are about 300 in number. The rest of the dictionary consists of content words.
Structural words are more difficult to teach than content words.
