Minor parts of speech

General characteristics:

• the word classes can be defined by listing all elements.
• the words of minor parts of speech have a 'grammatical' meaning, i.e. they are function words. They express a grammatical, meta-linguistic or indexical function.

closed word classes (i.e. new words in the language will not belong to any of these classes)

• diachronically words of minor parts of speech emerge and disappear very slowly if at all. A change in a minor class usually goes hand in hand with a change in the grammar.
• they are heterogeneous and difficult to group. Therefore, we cannot provide tests, but since we are dealing with closed classes, we can provide listings.

Minor parts of speech in English:

1. Determiners
2. Auxiliaries
3. Conjunctions
4. Complementizers
5. Particles
6. The infinitive marker to

These properties contrast with those of the major parts of speech.

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