Form and function

A useful distinction in grammar is that of grammatical form and grammatical function. Grammatical form is concerned with the description of linguistic units in terms of what they are, and grammatical function is concerned with the description of what these linguistic units do. Note that we use capital letters at the beginning of function labels, but this is by no means standard practice everywhere.

Goal

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Form and function: Activity 1

In the exercise you'll be asked to identify the function and the form of the highlighted words.

Identify the grammatical function

Identify the grammatical function of the highlighted words in the following sentences.

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Form and function: Activity 2

Identify the grammatical form and the grammatical function

Now identify both the form and the function of the highlighted words in the following sentences.

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It only takes a minute or two.