grammaticalize

G2R1A1M3M3A1T1I1C3A1L1I1Z10E1

verb

To make grammatical.

Scrabble 30

Meanings

verbgrammaticalize (third-person singular simple present grammaticalizes, present participle grammaticalizing, simple past and past participle grammaticalized)

present singular third person grammaticalizes · participle present grammaticalizing · participle past grammaticalized · past grammaticalized · alternative grammaticalise

  1. transitiveTo make grammatical.

    Enhanced output arises when learners grammaticalize their output either through the use of more advanced interlanguage forms or of target language forms.

    1999, Rod Ellis, Learning a Second Language through Interaction, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 174
    1 more example

    It is only later that learners begin to grammaticalize their speech. According to N. Ellis (1996), they do this by extracting rules from the items they have learned—bootstrapping their way to grammar.

    2001, Eli Hinkel, Sandra Fotos, New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms, Routledge, →ISBN, page 23
  2. transitivehuman sciencesTo integrate into a system of grammar; to make (something such as a constraint) an element or rule of grammar, to cause (something) to be required by grammar.

    ... Udmurt, Turkish, and Yucatec Mayan to test (and critique) the hypothesis that possessives grammaticalize into definite articles.

    2003, George Melville Bolling, Bernard Bloch, Language
    2 more examples

    That is, the cooccurrence restrictions do cross intervening specifications for the same feature. […] In the model, a linguistic constraint against homorganicity (which may grammaticalize constraints on motor programming) is enforced on pairs […]

    1993, North Eastern Linguistic Society. Meeting, Proceedings of NELS.

    For example, some languages grammaticalize the universal preference for definite over indefinite subjects, whereas it remains a soft constraint in others […]

    2014, Brian MacWhinney, William O'Grady, The Handbook of Language Emergence, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 18
  3. transitivehuman sciencesTo cause (a word, a suffix, etc) to undergo grammaticalization.

    Similarly to other classifier languages in South America and elsewhere, a number of nouns grammaticalize as classifiers and are also used as derivational suffixes, e.g. *-maka 'stretch (of cloth)' (from *maka “hammock'), […]

    2002, Aleksandra I͡Urʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd, Language Contact in Amazonia, Oxford University Press on Demand, →ISBN, page 292
    2 more examples

    Items that grammaticalize become more productive in the sense that the grammaticalizing element occurs with increasingly large numebrs of categories. […] Clearly, lexicalization is far less constrained by various types of linguistic processes than grammaticalization is.

    2005, Laurel J. Brinton, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Lexicalization and Language Change, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 109

    As participles tend to grammaticalize into modal suffixes in Uralic and other Siberian languages, and not the other way around (Janhunen 1998: 471; Malchukov 2013), it can be assumed that the Proto-Samoyedic suffix *-pso was a participle ...

    2017, Kees Hengeveld, Heiko Narrog, Hella Olbertz, The Grammaticalization of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality: A Functional Perspective, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN, page 143

Synonyms & antonyms

Origin

Translations

French grammaticaliser
  • grammaticaliserto make grammatical
German grammatikalisieren
  • grammatikalisierento make grammatical
Polish gramatykalizować, zgramatykalizować
  • gramatykalizowaćto make grammatical
  • zgramatykalizowaćto make grammatical
Portuguese gramaticalizar
  • gramaticalizarto make grammatical
Spanish gramaticalizar
  • gramaticalizarto make grammatical
Cite this entry
APA

grammaticalize. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grammaticalize

MLA

“grammaticalize.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grammaticalize. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “grammaticalize,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grammaticalize.

Source: grammaticalize on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.