decategorialize
decategorialize verb: to undergo decategorialization.
Verb
decategorialize (third-person singular simple present decategorializes, present participle decategorializing, simple past and past participle decategorialized)
- To undergo decategorialization.
- […] in which the lexeme begins to "decategorialize" (Heine et al. 1991), i.e. to lose the morphosyntactic behaviors characteristic of its original category. For example, in the English relator noun construction on top of NP, top, while clearly a noun […]1997, Joan L. Bybee, John Haiman, Sandra A. Thompson, Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givón, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 56
- A grammaticalizing item decategorializes (Hopper 1991), losing membership of its source category. As a result of high frequency, it may become independently entrenched (Bybee 2006), receiving a kind of categorial autonomy, […]2010, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Graeme Trousdale, Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 75
Forms of decategorialize
| third-person singular present | decategorializes |
|---|---|
| present participle | decategorializing |
| past participle | decategorialized |
| past | decategorialized |
Questions about decategorialize
- What does decategorialize mean?
- Decategorialize means to undergo decategorialization.
- What part of speech is decategorialize?
- Decategorialize is a verb.
- What is the past tense of decategorialize?
- The past tense of decategorialize is decategorialized.
Words near decategorialize in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: decategorialize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “decategorialize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/decategorialize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.