Syntactic lexicalization as a new type of degrammaticalization

On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations

“…A similar situation holds for the development of Bulgarian nešto, from an indefinite pronoun 'something' to a noun meaning 'thing', and for the substantivization of the Welsh originally possessive pronoun eiddo 'his' with the meaning 'property' (Willis 2007;Norde 2009: 143-148). In these cases, we are dealing with a generic target that has been upgraded from an independent word and therefore can in no way be considered as the hyperonym of a series of semantically similar lexemes.…”

“…"Degrammation is a composite change whereby a function word in a specific context is reanalysed as a member of a major word class, acquiring the morphosyntactic properties which are typical of that word class, and gaining in semantic substance" (Norde 2009: 135). Typical examples of degrammation are identified by Norde in the use of the modal wotte 'would' as a lexical verb 'wish' in Pennsylvania German (Burridge 1995), in the use of the modal dei 'should' as a lexical verb 'need' in Chinese (Ziegeler 2004), in the use of the indefinite pronoun nešto 'something' as a noun with the concrete meaning 'thing' in Bulgarian, in the use of the possessive pronoun eiddo 'his' as a noun with the meaning 'property' in Welsh and in the use of the Welsh preposition yn ol 'after' as a verb nôl 'fetch' (Willis 2007).…”

“…Note that while the source of an auxiliary in grammaticalization may also have a concrete meaning such as 'take', 'grasp' or 'lack' (Kuteva 2001), these meanings do not usually appear as targets of degrammaticalized verbs, which suggests that grammaticalization and degrammaticalization are not each other's mirror image. This is, however, not implicit in the definition of degrammaticalization (see Section 1), which may occasionally bring about concrete predicates, as in Willis' (2007) case study of the Welsh verb nôl 'fetch', derived from the composite preposition yn ol 'after'. There is therefore nothing structurally wrong in lexicalizations with a concrete target, and the prevalence of abstract targets here observed must be significant.…”

Death and contact-induced rebirth of impersonal pronouns. A case study

“…These younger generations also make extensive use of annə, a form which has entered the Abru zzese lexicon very recently. Annə is quite a striking example of "degrammatical ization" (Lehman 1995[<1982], 1995, Giacalone Ramat 1998, Giacalone Ramat & Hopper 1998, Traugott & Heine 1991, Heine 2003, Hopper & Traugott 2003, Willis 2007, Norde 2009 and many others), in that, as will be shown below, it follows exactly the same diachronic pattern as nomə, only in the reverse order.…”

Syntactic Reanalysis of Pronouns as Demonstratives: A Case of Degrammaticalization

“…Unlike grammaticalization, however, degrammaticalization has been treated as comprising a single change in isolation, such as from affix to clitic, or from function word to lexical item. Thus, Willis (2007) discusses degrammaticalization of Welsh eiddo from possessive pronoun 'his' to the noun 'property. ' Norde (2006' Norde ( , 2009) discusses development of the word-marking genitive -s out of the case suffix in Swedish.…”