English Functional Morphemes — Closed-Class Inventory
November 16, 2025•1,058 words
English Functional Morphemes — Closed-Class Inventory
https://chatgpt.com/share/68e79c5f-8f28-8005-9cce-72de126a319e
A complete, linguistically grounded list of English functional morphemes (closed-class grammatical morphemes). Grouped by linguistic function and noting morphological type (free vs bound).
1. Overview
| Category | Examples | Function / Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Inflectional Bound Morphemes | -s, -’s, -ed, -ing, -en, -er, -est |
Indicate tense, number, aspect, possession, comparison |
| Auxiliary / Modal Verbs | be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being, have, has, had, do, does, did, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would |
Express tense, aspect, voice, mood, modality |
| Copula / Existential Verbs | be, existential there (there is/are) |
Express existence or identity |
| Determiners / Articles | the, a, an, this, that, these, those, each, every, some, any, no, either, neither, enough, both, all, half, several, many, much, few, little |
Mark definiteness, specificity, quantity |
| Pronouns | I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, mine, yours, theirs, myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves, who, whom, whose, which, what, someone, anyone, everyone, something, nothing |
Substitute for nouns; indicate person, number, case |
| Prepositions | about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, out, outside, over, past, since, through, throughout, till, to, toward, under, underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without |
Express spatial, temporal, causal, or logical relations |
| Conjunctions | Coordinating: and, but, or, nor, so, for, yet Subordinating: because, although, since, if, when, while, before, after, unless, until, whereas, though, even though, as, once |
Connect clauses or phrases |
| Complementizers / Relativizers | that, if, whether, who, whom, whose, which, what, where, when |
Introduce complement or relative clauses |
| Particles (phrasal verbs) | up, down, off, out, on, over, away, back, along, apart |
Modify verb meaning or aspect |
| Negators | not, no, nor, neither, never, none |
Express negation or exclusion |
| Quantifiers | all, some, any, every, each, no, few, little, much, many, several, both, enough, half, either, neither, more, most, less, least |
Express quantity or amount |
| Interrogatives | who, what, where, when, why, how, which |
Mark questions or unknown information |
| Intensifiers / Degree Modifiers | very, quite, too, so, rather, almost, nearly, enough |
Modify degree or extent |
| Expletives / Placeholders | dummy it, existential there |
Fill syntactic roles without semantic content |
| Discourse / Connective Adverbs | however, therefore, moreover, then, otherwise, instead, also |
Connect ideas across sentences |
| Polarity / Focus Particles | only, even, also, just, too, merely, simply |
Emphasize or restrict scope of meaning |
2. English Inflectional Morphemes (Bound)
| Morpheme | Grammatical Function | Example |
|---|---|---|
-s |
plural noun or 3rd person singular verb | cats, runs |
-’s |
possessive | John’s |
-ed |
past tense / past participle | walked, played |
-ing |
progressive aspect / gerund | running, being |
-en / -ed |
past participle (strong/weak verbs) | broken, opened |
-er |
comparative adjective / agent noun | taller, runner |
-est |
superlative adjective | tallest |
Note: English has a small, fixed set of inflectional morphemes (above). Most other affixes are derivational (lexical).
3. Grouped by Ontological Roles (Identity / Properties / Behaviours / Relations)
| Ontology | Core Functional Morphemes (examples) |
|---|---|
| Identity | be, is, am, are, was, were, the, a, an, this, that, who, what, it, there |
| Properties | has, have, had, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, not, no, very, more, most, less, least |
| Behaviours | do, does, did, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, -ing, -ed |
| Relations | of, to, for, by, from, with, at, on, in, into, over, under, between, and, or, but, because, if, when |
4. Functional Morpheme Inventory (Unique Core List)
A deduplicated inventory of ≈150 high-frequency English functional morphemes (closed-class):
a, an, the, this, that, these, those, each, every, all, some, any, no, none, both, either, neither, few, little, much, many, several, more, most, less, least, enough, half, such, other, another, own, same, different, whose, who, whom, which, what, whatever, whoever, myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves, I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, mine, yours, theirs, be, am, is, are, was, were, been, being, have, has, had, having, do, does, did, doing, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, of, to, for, from, by, with, about, over, under, between, among, before, after, during, since, without, within, until, on, at, in, into, out, up, down, off, over, near, as, like, because, although, if, unless, while, whereas, and, or, but, nor, so, yet, not, never, nor, only, even, also, just, too, very, quite, rather, almost, enough, there, it
5. Summary
| Type | Count (approx.) | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Inflectional bound morphemes | 8 | -s, -ed, -ing, -en, -’s, -er, -est |
| Functional words (free morphemes) | ~140 | the, be, and, or, of, to, for, if, not, has, can, etc. |
| Total (core English functional morphemes) | ≈150 | (closed-class inventory) |
Prompts:
You asked the following in this chat:
1. List all Functional Grammatical Morphemes by Ontology
Identity
Properties
Behaviours
Relations
Ex: Properties: has, have
Relation: with,
2. You Missed most general usages:
Refer: WordNet, ConceptNet
Relations in WordNet
https://wordnet.princeton.edu/documentation/wninput5wn
https://globalwordnet.github.io/gwadoc
Home · commonsense/conceptnet5 Wiki
https://github.com/commonsense/conceptnet5/wiki
3. Just Extract all Functional Morphemes from: WordNet, ConceptNet
4. Just Extract All Functional Morphemes from ConceptNet Relatiions
Ex: of from MadeOf
5. Full list
6. Now extract from relation uri
Ex: of from MadeOf
7. Unique Functional Morphemes and Its Relation categories
8. List all English Functional Morphemes
9. OK, Now carefully convert your response into markdown format copiable block code
10. My all inputs exactly inthat enitre chat copiable block code
11. I want collect my all inputs by me