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October 02, 2005
Chapter Three Writing Exercise
Question 2
The verb "to be" is different from other verbs, such as "to ask," because it undergoes irregular morphological modification. Unlike most verbs that can be conjugated as the following: I, you, we, they ask; he/she/it asks, the verb "to be" changes form: I am; you, we, they are; he/she/it is. Based on this, the verb "to be" should be a content word because it does not follow the rules of morphology, but rather one must memorize its different, grammatically correct forms.
Quantifier words are not a closed class of words. An example of a quantifer word that is only used in the Boston area and probably wasn't around 50 years ago is "wicked," which is another way to say "really." People living in other regions of the U.S. are not familiar with this word, but perhaps someday it will become incorporated into their vocabulary of quantifier words. Another example of new quantifier words comes from a popular movie about future life in space. In this movie the characters use the terms "micro" and "macro" to express quantity as in "very" or "not very." Although they are not used in this way today, perhaps in the future they will be used like this as quantifier words.
The process in which the brain learns function words is a simple process of memorization. On the other hand, when the brain learns content words it only needs to learn the root and rules for morphological modifications, but does not need to memorize every single possible morphological variant of the word. The brain draws upon these components when they are needed and compiles them accordingly in a creative process, whereas when the brain needs to call upon a functional word, it simply needs to memorize the word, and use little to no creativity in applying it.
Posted by lcissullivan at October 2, 2005 02:06 PM