Which category includes words used mainly as linking or supporting words for other words, having little meaning alone?

• A. Function words
• B. Content words
• C. Grammatical morphemes
• D. Formulaic

Answer: (A)

Function words are the category that fits this description. They are the small linking and supporting items—articles (the, a), prepositions (in, on), pronouns (he, they), conjunctions (and, but), and auxiliary verbs (is, have)—that help connect content words and show the relationships between them. They carry little concrete meaning by themselves, but they’re essential for sentence structure and grammar. In contrast, content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) carry the main meaning of a sentence, grammatical morphemes are affixes that modify meaning or tense, and formulaic items are fixed expressions rather than a broad class of linking words.