[kde-doc-english]checking thesaurus documentation

[Éric Bischoff]

> "Function word" is a standard term in linguistics (and hence in
> many grammar books) for that kind of words (meaning words are the
> opposite; these are roughly nouns, verbs, adjectives prepositions
> (mostly) and adverbs).  Function words are defined as indicating
> the function of a phrase (of meaning words) in a sentence
> (determiners, conjunctions, ...).

I asked a French grammar teacher meanwhile. In French they are named "outils 
grammaticaux", which could be translated literally as "grammar tools". I did 
not know that, neither did I know that they were called "function words" in 
English ;-). She also added that, as it's a rather vague notion, it's better 
to be more precise, and distinguish between conjunctions, prepositions, 
determiners, some adverbs, etc.