Difference between class and function... Here we are facing the primordial requirement that guides the understanding of “morphological analysis” and “syntactic analysis”. This time, as this is something very important in linguistic studies, this article aims to emphasize the importance of the distinction between class and function, since class refers to morphological analysis; and occupation, to syntactic analysis.
Suppose, therefore, that we were responsible for analyzing, morphologically and syntactically, these statements:
I went to high school on Saturday.
Making the morphological analysis, we have:
I was – verb
in - preposition (in + a)
school - noun
saturday - noun
Syntactic:
I - hidden subject
I was at school Saturday - verbal predicate
at school - adverbial adjunct of place
saturday - adverbial time adjunct
As you could see, the words that, according to the class, are classified as nouns, as it is the case of 'college' and 'Saturday', analyzed according to function, play different roles, do you agree? In other words, they play a role, respectively, of adverbial adjunct of place and time.
So let's look at another statement:
They handed over the grades to the students.
Morphologically saying, we have:
delivered – verb
as - definite article
notes - noun
ao - preposition (a+o), followed by the plural mark "-s"
students - noun
Syntactically:
Indeterminate subject
Verb in the third person plural - delivered
Predicate - they delivered the grades to the students
the notes - direct object
to students - indirect object
We noticed that the nouns “notes” and “students” started to play, respectively, the function of direct and indirect object.
That's why we consider that class is not a function!!!
By Vânia Duarte
Graduated in Letters
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/diferenca-entre-classe-funcao.htm