Lexicalization

Lexicalization is the name in linguistics for the diachronic incorporation into the lexicon of a language of complex grammatical elements (made up of both lexical and functional) that, as compounds, gain semantic value of their own and are no longer analyzable from their formants. Thus, the complex expression take those straws away from me receives its own meaning of nothing or something unimportant regardless of the meaning of the phrase to the letter. With that sense it is used as if it were a simple word, since it is lexicalized. The expression that undergoes lexicalization will normally be unpredictable in the semantic, syntactic or phonological aspect of analyzing it.

An example of this is locutions or idiomatic expressions, whose meaning does not usually coincide with what is expected from the letter of the same. Thus, said of a free syntactic construction or combination, to become lexical is to become part of the lexical system of a language, becoming a more or less fixed expression with its own meaning. Thus, the expression in my life is lexicalized with the meaning of never: «I will not do it again IN MY LIFE»; and so are sentences or constructions such as we are nobody!, needless to say, happy and crazy or at random Good God.