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Function words may be Preposition s, Pronouns , Auxiliary Verb s, Conjunction s, Grammatical Article s or Particle s, all of which belong to the group of Closed Class Word s. Interjection s are sometimes considered function words but they belong to the group of Open Class Word s. Function words may or may not be Inflected or may have Affix es.

They belong to the closed class of words in Grammar in that it is very uncommon to have new function words created in the course of speech, whereas in the Open Class Word , that is nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, new words may be formed readily (such as Slang words, technical terms, adoptions and adaptations of foreign words). See Neologism .

Each function word gives some grammatical information on other words in a sentence or clause, and cannot be isolated from other words, or it may indicate the speaker's mental position as to what is being said.

Here follows a list of the type of words included in function words:

Article s - ''the'' and ''a''. In highly inflected languages, the articles may take on the case of the Declension of the following noun.

Pronoun s - inflected in English, as ''he''- ''him'', ''she'' - ''her'', etc

Preposition s - uninflected in English.

Conjunction s - uninflected

Auxiliary Verb s - forming part of the Conjugation (pattern of the Tense s of main verbs) are always inflected

Interjection s - sometimes called "filled pauses", are uninflected

Particle s - convey the attitude of the speaker and are uninflected, as ''if'', ''then'', ''well'', ''however'', ''thus'', etc.

Expletive s - set up sentences, and other functions, ''It is'', ''There are'', etc.

Pro-sentence s — for instance ''yes'', ''okay'', etc.

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