Functional item

In the framework of Noam Chomsky's Minimalist Program, items of the lexicon are of two types: with or without substantive content. Items of the former category are called lexical items, whereas items of the latter category are functional items. Functional items carry the grammatical content of a sentence, which means that by taking them out of the sentence one would still understand the meaning, although it would not be grammatical. In other words, they are the 'glue' that holds the sentence together. Functional items can also be classified as closed class, that is, belonging to parts of speech that do not easily allow new members. If functional items are removed from a sentence, the words that would be left are the lexical items. The lexical items of a sentence are those that are used in telegraphic speech; functional items are the grammatical units that hold the sentence together and make it more fluid. Functional Items are feature sets. Functional items include two type of morphemes. Free morphemes, like modals, auxiliaries, determiners, complementizers, and bound morphemes such as nominal and verbal affixes. Though functional items have feature structure, the do not enter into θ-marking.