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.