[General] clause, group and words

[lolliswan]

Hi All,

I have difficulty understanding the meaning of clause, group, content words and grammatical words. I appreciate your help to explain them to me, based on the example below:

The policeman, who had never heard of the Lawrence Amendment, was stumped by the supercilious approach of the barrister.

Is it correct to categorise them as follows:

Clause - The policeman

was stumped by the supercilious approach of the barrister
who had never heard of the Lawrence Amendment
​

Groups - The policeman, the Lawrence Amendment, the barrister

Content words - heard, stumped, approach,

Grammatical words - had never, supercilious



Your advice and feedback is highly appreciated. Thank you

 

[Barb_D]

Welcome to Using English, lolliswan.

I'm afraid the terms you're using (group, content words, and grammatical words) are not familiar to me in this context.

Can you explain what you're looking for when you want to identify the "groups," for example? Or what a "content word" is supposed to be?

 

[lolliswan]

Welcome to Using English, lolliswan.

I'm afraid the terms you're using (group, content words, and grammatical words) are not familiar to me in this context.

Can you explain what you're looking for when you want to identify the "groups," for example? Or what a "content word" is supposed to be?

Are there any teachers out there who could help me, please?

 

[5jj]

The policeman, who had never heard of the Lawrence Amendment, was stumped by the supercilious approach of the barrister.

I have underlined the grammatical/function words. The others are content/lexical words.

Clause - The policeman was stumped by the supercilious approach of the barrister √

who had never heard of the Lawrence Amendment √
​

 

[lolliswan]

Hi 5jj,

Thank you for your response. After some thorough reading on the definitions and reference to your reply, I finally understood what they are now.

Thank you once again.

 

[lolliswan]

Hi 5jj,

Just a question; am I right to say the auxiliary verb 'was' should be classified under grammatical/ function word?

Thanks

 

[5jj]

Just a question; am I right to say the auxiliary verb 'was' should be classified under grammatical/ function word?

You are. Sorry, I missed that one. I have now edited my post.

 

[lolliswan]

ok, thanks alot, 5jj