The process whereby lexical or content words acquire grammatical functions or existing grammatical units acquire further grammatical functions. Grammaticalization has received a great deal of attention within cognitive linguistics. This is because grammaticalization is characterised by interlaced changes in the form and meaning of a given construction (1) and can therefore be seen as a process that is essentially grounded in meaning. Furthermore, cognitive linguists argue that semantic change in grammaticalization is a function of language use and thus is a usage-based phenomenon.