Many (most?) of them are optional, you can compile PHP with/without certain extensions. Design wise, it seems insane - kind of like the iPhone's non-removable battery. Turns out it doesn't hurt either one's popularity though...
OK, so I really didn't think I needed to specify "at run-time" with regard to the meaning of "optional".
A library function that is not optional is effectively a keyword. The PHP standard library (all ~3000 functions) is not optional, as far as I know.