"former function" is a grammatically correct and commonly used phrase in written English.
It refers to a previous or previously held role or responsibility. It can be used in various contexts, such as describing a person's previous job or a machine's previous purpose. Example: His former function as a sales manager gave him extensive experience in negotiating deals.
Since 1983, when the Merc introduced the crude-oil contract, investors and traders have largely assumed the cartel's former function of setting prices.
The theatre behind A Live Trail, the Nightingale, has just renamed all its spaces to reflect the building's former function as a hotel.
The only sign of its former function is the bust of a horse that hangs above a gate outside.
As periods indicate not just ends of sentences but abbreviations as well, a capitalized word that follows often clarifies that the period was serving the former function instead of the latter.
Like his neighbors, she said, he worked with stone quarried at the end of the aptly named Stone Avenue, which dead-ends at a slope that hints at the area's former function.
The almost-out-of-reach slot windows, exposed brickwork and scuffed metal door harked back to the building's former function; the thick carpet, comfortable armchair, tasteful photographs of local gargoyles and the soft queen-size bed, stacked high with cushions, were obviously more recent additions.
Again, though, it is photography's former functions that are at the heart of this exhibition.
Those who do decide to endow their buildings with names get their inspiration from a wide variety of sources, from history (the Bolivar) to mythology (the Atalanta), art (the Picasso and the Renoir), music (the Gershwin, Anthem, Lyric), former functions (the Sugar Warehouse, the American Thread building) and the philosophical (the Paradigm, Infinity Court).
The former functions in a tag question, whereas the latter participates in a concessive sentence.
The proposed model consists of a macroscopic simulation and a signal optimization module, where the former functions to capture the interactions between scooter and passenger-car flows over the process of discharging, propagation, and formation of intersection queues.
Indeed, it is natural to think that 'reason to believe' and 'evidence' are more or less synonymous, being distinguished chiefly by the fact that the former functions grammatically as a count noun while the latter functions as a mass term.[4] To the extent that what one is justified in believing depends upon one's evidence, what is relevant is the bearing of one's total evidence.
