Mini-Lecture - Intro to Structure Classes

[major_kerina]

Words that establish structural relationships between words in the form classes - a brick wall and the bricks = form classes, the mortar between the bricks = structure classes.

Structure classes are closed classes.
They have a limited membership.
New members are not readily admitted.
Structure classes are not recognized by form, but rather by position.
The words of  each class occur in a fixed position relative to the words in another class.

Unlike form classes which carry lexical meaning, structure classes carry functional or grammatical meaning.
They signal the functional relationships among other words.
In “John received a gift from Mary,” from has the function of identifying Mary as the source of the gift.

Are known as...
Determiners
Pronouns
Prepositions
Auxiliaries
Degree Adverbs
Coordinating Conjunctions