Closed class
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, a closed class (or closed word class) is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. Typical closed classes found in many languages are adposition
Adposition
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...

s (prepositions and postpositions), determiner
Determiner (class)
A determiner is a noun-modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun-phrase in the context, rather than attributes expressed by adjectives...

s, conjunction
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...

s, and pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...

s.

Contrastingly, an open class
Open class (linguistics)
In linguistics, a word class may be either an open class or a closed class. Open classes accept the addition of new morphemes , through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing; closed classes generally do not....

 offers possibilities for expansion. Typical open classes such as noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

s and verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s can and do get new words often, through the usual means such as compounding
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

, derivation
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...

, coining, borrowing, etc.
A closed class may get new items through these same processes, but the change takes much more time. The closed class is normally viewed as part of the core language and is not expected to change. Most readers can undoubtedly think of new nouns or verbs entering their lexicon, but it's very unlikely that they can recall any new prepositions or pronouns appearing in the same fashion.

Different languages have different word classes as open class and closed class – for example, in English, pronouns are closed class and verbs are open class (see for example the contentious topic of gender-neutral pronouns in English and how common verbing is), while in Japanese, pronouns
Japanese pronouns
Pronouns are used less frequently in the Japanese language than in many other languages, mainly because there is no grammatical requirement to include the subject in a sentence. So, pronouns can seldomly be translated from English to Japanese on a one-on-one basis.The common, English pronouns, such...

are open class, while verbs are closed class – to form a new verb, one suffixes 〜する (-suru, "to do") to a noun – for example, "to exercise" is 運動する – "to do exercise".

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