Linguistics & Language · Historical & Comparative Linguistics
A topic within Historical & Comparative Linguistics, itself one of 10 topics in that field and part of Linguistics & Language.
2 works
Christian Lehmann
Sets out the parameters — such as paradigmaticity, bondedness and obligatoriness — by which the grammaticalisation of a lexical item into a grammatical marker can be measured, arguing that these track recurrent, largely unidirectional paths from concrete lexical meaning to abstract grammatical function.
Antoine Meillet
Names and defines grammaticalisation as the process by which an autonomous word loses independence and becomes a grammatical tool, and argues this gradual weakening, not sudden invention, is how languages renew their grammar.
link checked 17 Sept 2026