grammaticalization
/ɡɹəˌmæ.tɪ.kə.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/noun
grammaticalization is spelled G-R-A-M-M-A-T-I-C-A-L-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N: 18 letters. It appears about once in every 31 million words in written English, the 169,822nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, grammaticalization means “The process of making grammatical” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of grammaticalization is grammaticalizations.
How many letters and syllables are in grammaticalization?
| Letters | 18: G-R-A-M-M-A-T-I-C-A-L-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 31 million words; the 169,822nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is grammaticalization?
Grammaticalization appears about once in every 31 million words in written English, the 169,822nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce grammaticalization?
- /ɡɹəˌmæ.tɪ.kə.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-grammaticalization.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of grammaticalization
- grammaticalizations plural
- grammaticalisation
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does grammaticalization mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The process of making grammatical.
- 2
The process of language change by which a word or morpheme is reduced to more of a grammeme than a lexeme, for example the reduction of a content word representing an object or action (a noun or verb) to a clitic.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Grammaticalization in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the process of making grammatical:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | grammaticalisation |
| German | Grammatikalisierung |
| Portuguese | gramaticalização |
| Spanish | gramaticalización |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does grammaticalization come from?
From French grammaticalisation, coined in 1912 by the French linguist Antoine Meillet, corresponding to grammatical + -ization.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).