functionwordsets

Comprehensive multilingual function-word datasets with a simple Python API

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Overview

functionwordsets ships ready-to-use function-word lists for many languages and time-periods.
Each dataset is a tiny Python module located in functionwordsets/datasets/ and is loaded on demand through a minimal API.

Supported out of the box :

ID	Language / period	Entries*
fr_21c	French – 21st century	688
en_21c	English – 21st century	390
sp_21c	Spanish – 21st century	481
it_21c	Italian – 21st century	495
nl_21c	Dutch – 21st century	287
gr_5cbc	Ancient Greek – 5th-4th c. BCE	264
oc_13c	Old Occitan – 12th-13th c.	360
la_1cbc	Classical Latin – 1st c. BCE	353

*Number of distinct word-forms in the union of all categories.

You can also add or fork your own datasets: just drop a <id>.py file following the template shown below.

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💡 Supported grammatical categories

(summary unchanged – see below for details)

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Installation

pip install functionwordsets         # from PyPI
# or, from a cloned repo
pip install -e .

Python ≥ 3.8 – zero runtime dependencies – wheel < 20 kB zipped.

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Quick start

import functionwordsets as fw

# List available datasets
print(fw.available_ids())            # ['fr_21c', 'en_21c', …]

# Load one set (defaults to fr_21c)
fr = fw.load()                       # same as fw.load('fr_21c')
print(fr.name, len(fr.all))          # French – 21st century 688

# Membership test
if 'ne' in fr.all:
    ...

# Build a custom stop-set: only articles + prepositions
stops = fr.subset(['articles', 'prepositions'])

Command-line helpers

# List dataset IDs
fw-list

# Export every French function word to a text file
fw-export fr_21c -o fr.txt

# Export only conjunctions & negations from Spanish as JSON
fw-export sp_21c --include coord_conj subord_conj negations -o sp_stop.json

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Dataset layout

Internally each dataset is defined as a small Python dictionary:

data = {
    "name": "English – 21st century",
    "language": "en",
    "period": "21c",
    "categories": {
        "articles": [...],
        "prepositions": [...],
        # …
    }
}

functionwordsets treats the object as read-only, so feel free to edit or extend it in your fork.

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Notes on auxiliary categories

Keys for auxiliary verbs follow the pattern aux_<lemma> (e.g. aux_être, aux_be, aux_ser). They vary by language; see each dataset file for the exact key.

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Enjoy !