As noted earlier, the "function word" model generates function words via adapted nonterminals other than the Word category.
in order to better understand just how the model works, we give the 5 most frequent words in each word category found during 8 MCMC runs of the left-peripheral "function word" grammar above: the present model, initially aimed at segmenting words from continuous speech, shows three interesting characteristics that are also exhibited by human infants: it distinguishes between function words and content words (Shi and Werker, 2001), it allows learners to acquire at least some of the function words of their language (e.g.