Grammaticalisation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The linguistic process by which a word or phrase loses semantic content and becomes a structural element of the language
2. The phenomenon whereby a lexical item gradually acquires grammatical function and becomes an integral part of the language's formal system
3. The historical development through which a meaningful word transforms into a grammatical marker or inflectional form in a language

Etymology: Grammaticalisation is a term coined by the French linguist Antoine Meillet, who used "grammaticalisation" in 1912 in a paper on how words gradually turn into grammatical markers. The idea he described is that a word with a full, concrete meaning can wear down over centuries into a grammatical tool: a verb of motion becomes a future marker, for example, or a noun meaning "head" becomes a word for "on top of" or "about." The term itself is a plain technical formation, built from "grammatical" with the suffix "-isation" (a spelling form of "-ization," from Greek "-izein" through Latin and French). It was not an ancient word, and it entered English in the early twentieth century as linguists in Europe and America adopted it for this process. The classic illustration is English "going to," as in "I am going to leave." It once meant physically traveling toward a place, but over several centuries it weakened into a marker of future time, and in speech it has reduced further to "gonna." English "will" followed a similar path: it once meant "want" or "desire," and now mainly marks the future.

Synonyms: grammaticalization