The function/content distinction

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In linguistics, and mostly applied to words (perhaps because they are the most pliable among the (near-)surface forms)...

Function words have little or no lexical meaning, and are instead used for grammatical assistance.

Part-of-speech-wise, they tend to be small, closed classes, often mainly prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, pronouns, articles, particles, expletives, pro-sentences, and such.

Content words (sometimes 'lexical words') are those with lexical meaning, including nouns, adjectives, verbs, and most adverbs (some adverbs can be both).

Content words are usually in open classes, though it's worth pointing out it's also more part of morphology - as content morphemes, as in derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes (see derivational morphology and inflectional morphology).

See also

• Words, forms, and various units in sentences