A Rough Comparison between “Open word lasses” and “Closed word classes”

Liu Tingting

【Abstract】 Open and closed word classes are the two major types of word class. A research is conducted to figure out the differences between them. Then it is further proved that they are greatly different from each other in openness and number， frequency， lexical meaning and inflection.

【Keywords】open word class；closed word class；differences

1.Introduction

Open and closed class words are the two major types of word class. In order to learn of the differences between the two word classes， systematic review of literature is done， and corpus-based research method is adopted. And corpora used to assist the research are two sub-corpora of BNC （British National Corpus）： BNC samplers （written& and spoken）.

2.Definition

Generally， words can be classified into three classes on the basis of their functional and grammatical roles. They are function words， lexical words， and inserts. Inserts， which frequently occur in spoken English （eg. hm， ugh）， are a new word category （ Biber et al. 2000）. Here in this essay， only the function words and lexical words will be discussed.

Murphy （2010） claims that open-class words “overlap with lexical words”， and closed class words include function words （p.14）. While lexical words are the “meaning carriers”， function words play important roles in linking the text together （Biber et al.， 2000， p.55）.

3.Differences

Generally， lexical words， or open class words consist of nouns， adjectives， verbs， and adverbs， while function words， or closed class words comprise articles， pronouns， prepositions， conjunctions etc.The comparison will be made in terms of openness and number， lexical meaning， inflection and stress， and frequency.

3.1 Openness and number

Open systems embrace in new members as society develops. For example， blog， selfie， are added to the family of Nouns in modern time. So the number of them is large and will be larger.

As opposed to open systems， closed systems have small and limited number of members （Biber et al.，2000）. And they cannot easily absorb new members. It is the reason why they are so called closed class words. But it doesnt mean that the closed systems never expand. For example， Downing and Locke （2002） point out that prepositions admit participles like “concerning”， “including” and slowly increase in number. Besides， “sequences of orthographic words and auxiliaries” have derived out of lexical verbs， which also contributes to the expansion of closed class words （Biber et al.， 2000，p.56）. But the speed is really slow.

3.2 Lexical meaning

As discussed in the definition part， open- class words are meaningful and referential， while closed class words have little lexical meanings and serve as glue to hold lexical fragments together （Murphy， 2010）.But some words have both lexical and functional features. For example， preposition like “behind， towards” have lexical meanings.

3.3 Inflection and stress

According to Biber et al.（2000）， lexical words have inflections. For instance， the verb “speak” has its inflections： speak→spoke→spoken→speaking. The adjective “fast” has its inflections too： fast→faster→ fastest. The closed class words are “generally invariable”（p.57）.

In most cases， function words are not stressed while lexical words are stressed. But when auxiliaries used to emphasize something， they are stressed （Derek ，1995）.

Eg. I did arrive on time！

3.4 Frequency

I used WordSmith to generate the wordlists and found that the most frequently 10 words in BNC samplers are all belong to closed class words （see Table1&2）.

4.Conclusion

Based on the rough comparison between open words classes and closed word classes， a conclusion can be drawn： closed classes are generally small in number， invariable and have little lexical meaning but are more frequently used， while open classes are large in number， meaningful， and have inflections although they are not as frequently-used as closed classes. They both play important roles in English language.

References：

[1]Biber， D.，Johanson， S.，Leech， G.，Conrad， S. & Finegan， E. （2000）. Longman grammar of spoken and written English[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[2]Derek A.（1995）， Poetic Rhythm： An Introduction， Cambridge： Cambridge University Press.

[3]Downing， A， & Locke， P.，（2006）.English grammar： A university course （2nd ed.）. London ； New York： Routledge.

[4]Murphy， M. L. （2010）. Lexical meaning. Cambridge ； New York： Cambridge University Press.

[5]WordSmith， a software designed by Mike Scott.