degrammaticalization
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English[edit]
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The strengthening of the Old English inflectional ending -es from being an integral part of the genitive form of a word like fordes to being a clitic -'s which can be separated from the word ford as in a phrase like "the ford I crossed yesterday's location" is an example of degrammaticalization. |
Etymology[edit]
Noun[edit]
degrammaticalization (countable and uncountable, plural degrammaticalizations)
- The process of degrammaticalizing, of making less grammatical, or of making ungrammatical.
- (linguistics) The process of language change by which a morpheme (grammeme) is strengthened to become a content word, or otherwise have more lexical content.