Meaning of desemanticization | Babel Free

Definitions

The loss or removal of all or part of the original semantic content (meaning) of a word or morpheme, sometimes (but not always) as part of grammaticalization.

uncountable

Examples

“[…] Desemanticization By this process, a lexical item receives a second, non-lexical function, which may ultimately become its only function. Thus, in addition to its lexical meaning, a word receives […] Once again, this leads to the desemanticization of lexical meaning, namely that of the action verbs […]”

“Desemanticization. The meaning of forms tends to shift from more concrete to more abstract in grammaticalization. This happens through the loss of concrete semantic features that were part of the original form but have been “bleached out” […]”

CEFR level