obligatorification

English

Etymology

obligatory +‎ -ification

Noun

obligatorification (countable and uncountable, plural obligatorifications)

1. (linguistics) The act or process of, or an instance of, (something) becoming or being made (more) obligatory, especially as part of the process of grammaticalization.

   Synonym: obligatorization

   • 2011, John Haiman, Cambodian: Khmer, →ISBN, page 137:

     Following Jakobson 1959 [1972] and Lehmann 1982 [1995], grammaticalization for most observers always entails obligatorification. As Jakobson memorably put it, languages differ not in what they can say, but in what they must: [...]

   • 2013, Jeffrey P. Williams, The Aesthetics of Grammar: Sound and Meaning in the Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, →ISBN, page 79:

     Mandarin and Khmer and possibly other Southeast Asian languages may be characterized as resisting obligatorification of their meaningful morphology. Could this have anything to do with their penchant for decorative morphology?