Question

Explain, in your own words, why functional words, as opposed to content words, are limited in number​

Answer 1

Functional words, also known as grammatical words, are words that serve a grammatical purpose in a sentence, such as conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and auxiliary verbs. Content words, on the other hand, are words that carry the main meaning of a sentence, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

The reason why functional words are limited in number compared to content words is that functional words are highly abstract and serve a specific grammatical function, which means that they need to be used in a specific way and in a specific context. This limits the number of functional words that can exist in a language, as there are only so many different grammatical functions that need to be expressed.

Content words, on the other hand, represent a wide range of concepts and ideas, which means that they need to be more varied and numerous to accurately convey meaning. For example, English has over 170,000 words in current use, with many of these being content words that express different shades of meaning and nuance.

In summary, the limited number of functional words is due to the fact that they serve a highly specific grammatical function, while content words need to be more varied to accurately convey meaning.

Answer 2

Content words are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. A noun tells us which object, a verb tells us about the action happening, or the state. Adjectives give us details about objects and people and adverbs tell us how, when or where something is done. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs give us important information required for understanding.

Noun = person, place or thing

Verb = action, state

Adjective = describes an object, person, place or thing

Adverb = tells us how, where or when something happens

Examples:

Nouns Verbs

house enjoy

computer purchase

student visit

lake understand

Peter believe

science look forward to

Step-by-step explanation:

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