Talk:Grammaticalization

Rewrite
Looks like a nice rewrite in content, needs a little cleaning up. kwami (talk) 21:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Dubious
I don't agree that "let's" (from "let us") has ever been changed to "lets" (whether in "lets you and me fight" or otherwise); since apostrophes aren't spoken, it is merely the result of homophone confusion with the present-tense third-person singular form of to let. Comments? (Searching through the history, I tracked down the introduction of the sentence in question to the original rewrite back in January.) &mdash;Gordon P. Hemsley&rarr; &#x2709; 16:13, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. The form lets is just a misspelling of let's. That segment should be fixed. 203.206.70.29 (talk) 04:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it was just an attempt to show that "let's" is no longer a contraction of "let us" in such phrases, but a separate word. (I mean, you couln't say "let us you and me fight".) But that wasn't clear from the text. — kwami (talk) 09:09, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * you couln't say "let us you and me fight". -- I disagree, as evidenced by the fact that you did say it, and it is perfectly intelligible. It's an example of hortatory subjunctive, isn't it? Although, I would probably substitute you and I instead of you and me. Purplezart (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that this is a well-known, or even a good example. It may be an example of future grammaticalization, but WP:CRYSTAL. As of now, "lets you and me fight" is just broken English. If the phrase is used at all, it is used humorously, because it is broken English. If you wait for another century or so, perhaps it will become grammaticalized in standard 22nd century English. --dab (𒁳) 19:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I hear it used all the time. See discussion here, or 'Let's You and Me Have a Little Discussion': Computer mediated communication in support of campus-based university courses (Studies in Higher Education 25:1:85, March 2000). Perhaps it's dialectical. — kwami (talk) 19:21, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's certainly common enough. Google let's you and me yields 900K+ hits. Fourteen examples in written and spoken (movie) fiction in the selected Corpus of Contemporary American English (http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/). — Rmelca (talk) 11:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

's
In the 'Counterexamples' section, 'else' (somebody else's) is an adjective. Another possible formation involves apposition: 'my brother-in-law John's car', but I think there is a limit to the length of the string here: 'my brother-in-law and Everton goalkeeper John's car' would, I am sure, be rejected by most native English speakers and prove too difficult to form for most non-native speakers.Pamour (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Removed misplaced/malformatted material on Grammaticalization studies in Brazil
Grammaticalization at Brazil From 90 years, studies on grammaticalization became incorporated in the Brazilian universities. Two exponents of Brazilian southeastern are: Maria Luiza Braga, in Rio de Janeiro, and Teixeira Ataliba Castilho, in São Paulo. Both graduate young researchers, who became active in this line of research. In all parts of Brazil, studies advanced and today, the interaction between grammar and cognition has become increasingly evident stronger even involving interdisciplinary work between psychology and linguistics. Related works: Gonçalves, Carlos Sebastian et al. Introduction to grammaticalization, Publisher: Parabola, 2007. Lima-Hernandes, Maria Célia. Interface Sociolinguistics grammaticalization, Publisher: Edusp, 2011.

Holy crap this is academic, can we get some common eg English examples please??
I'm just a layman who stumbled on this article. Can we get a little less academic-linguist and have some common examples? It would greatly reduce the impedence mismatch.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MajorVariola (talk • contribs) 04:11, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Support: I second that notion, albeit somewhat less coarsely.  —&thinsp;RandomDSdevel (talk) 21:17, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

English variant
I started this article back in 2005 with English (UK) spelling, and it continued as such for quite some time --- past stub status --- MOS:RETAIN states "An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another." - Francis Tyers · 10:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the overwhelming use of the American spelling in the literature suggest that WP:RETAIN should be overridden in this case.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Not just that, but -ization is also UK spelling (and even preferred by the OED), so an argument can be made on the basis of COMMONALITY. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * A compromise would be ok, where English spellings are used throughout the article following the OED. E.g. "unanalysed" instead of "unanalyzed" etc. If someone wants to do this that would be fine. - Francis Tyers · 11:00, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * According to the OED, both "analyse" and "analyze" are correct (as approximations of expected *analysize), so that needn't be an exception. — kwami (talk) 06:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

English 'will'
This section is factually incorrect.

Grammatical word: Middle English and Modern English will, e.g. "I will go to the market"; auxiliary expressing intention, lacking many features of English verbs such as an inflected past tense (it is ungrammatical to say, e.g. *I willed go to the market).

In fact, in an earlier stage of Modern English it was quite grammatical to use the past tense, which is 'would'. For instance, an example that is still understandable (although archaic) in the modern language:

He would a sailor be.

Even "I would go to the market" (I wanted to go to the market) was probably acceptable in earlier stages of Modern English.

This section needs to be rewritten to remove this incorrect information.

114.254.134.81 (talk) 02:10, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * You make a good point, however it doesn't mean the section needs to be removed. Because really what you brought up is part of the process that section is attempting to describe. In Middle English, and indeed archaic forms of Modern English, "will" still had an inflected past tense that was used in regular speech, as you correctly point out. Over time, as grammaticalization continued, it has lost more of this lexical content and become more functional, to the point that "I would go to the market" would be understood by the vast majority of modern speakers to mean "I used to go to the market," with the expectation of further context to follow. Like "I would go to the market every weekend." I'll make a small edit to reflect this.
 * Toadchavay (talk) 08:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Confused wording in lead
The second sentence of the lead needs to be rewritten. Currently it is


 * ''Grammaticalization is a powerful aspect of language, as it creates new function words within language, by separating functions from their original inflectional and bound constructions (i.e. from content words).

First, "creates new function words within language, by separating functions from their original inflectional and bound constructions" is unclear since inflectional and bound constructions are the ultimate outcome of the process rather than what is "original".

And second, "by separating functions from their original inflectional and bound constructions (i.e. from content words)" seems nonsensical since it equates content words with inflectional and bound constructions.

How about this replacement sentence?:


 * Grammaticalization is a powerful aspect of language, as it creates new function words by a process other than deriving them from existing bound, inflectional constructions (i.e., by instead deriving them from content words).

Loraof (talk) 16:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Open access version of Lehmann "Thoughts"
"Thoughts on grammaticalization" is available as an Open Access version from http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/88. The list of references could be updated to include this link. This is the third edition, with new publisher, ISBN and year. I do not edited directly since I have a conflict of interest Jasy jatere (talk) 13:05, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

What's opposite to Grammaticalization?
What's the opposite procedure to Grammaticalization? Zzzwik (talk) 02:48, 27 October 2023 (UTC)