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).

Function words are a mostly closed class. Content words are an open class probably better seen as 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