4.3 The Closed-class Words

The closed-class words are also called structure, function, or grammatical words.

They do not carry lexical meanings like the open-class words do. Instead they modify or connect the open-class words to form grammatically sound sentences.

Moreover, unlike the open-class, the closed-class words have fixed forms and do not normally take inflectional or derivational morphemes.

All together, the closed-class words constitute about 10% of the English vocabulary.

There are five major types of closed-class words:

4.3.1 Determiners

4.3.2 Pronouns

4.3.3 Prepositions

4.3.4 Conjunctions

4.3.5 Auxiliary verbs