The terms ‘pragmaticization’ and ‘pragmaticalization’ have been around in studies concerned with grammaticalization at least since 1993 (references in Diewald 2011: 373f). The problem area will be briefly reviewed here, as it is peripheral to the topical area of grammaticalization.

Assume that these terms are to be interpreted according to the same derivation pattern underlying the term ‘grammaticalization’. Pragmaticalization would then be a process by which something moves into the realm of pragmatics. Since there are, by definition, no linguistic signs in pragmatics, this would be some kind of volatilization of linguistic signs where what was a feature of a significatum is converted into a mere implicature, while the significans dissolves into nothing. Although this is not inconceivable, neither are examples of it available nor is this what users of the term ‘pragmaticalization’ actually mean. What is often meant is that a linguistic sign which was not an element of the interfaces to pragmatics moves into one of these areas by acquiring relevant features, as in the case of the German modal particles.

In one kind of semantic change, meaning components which first arise by implicature become features of the significatum. This affects both lexical and grammatical signs. An example from the lexicon is the pejoration of the word boor. Its original meaning is ‘countryman, farmer’. A cliché of socio-psychic simplicity got associated with this meaning by implicature. This then becomes part of the significatum, so the expression becomes polysemous and now also means ‘course, rude person’. An example from grammar is the semantic development of the conjunction since. The original meaning of since t is a purely temporal one, viz. ‘in the period beginning with t’. This is one of the meanings of a.

By the implicature ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc’ (‘after it, consequently because of it’), the subordinate clause of a acquires a causal sense. This causal feature then becomes part of the significatum of since, so it becomes polysemous and also means ‘because’, as in #b.

Such examples show that the meaning of a sign can be enriched by features that come from outside the system, in this case from world knowledge. While this change does accompany the development of the conjunction since, it is not clear whether it is an aspect of its grammaticalization. The typical semantic development accompanying grammaticalization is desemanticization. Here, however, the meaning appears to be enriched. Depending, however, on our theory of semantic representation, such cases may still count as desemanticization, since growing polysemy subtracts from semantic specificity (Lehmann 1978).

Such examples illustrate, at any rate, the incorporation of features that are based in pragmatics into the significatum of a grammatical sign. If this is what is meant by pragmaticalization, then it is compatible with grammaticalization.¹

¹ Occasionally, authors even attribute to Lehmann's grammaticalization theory the assumption that grammaticalization involves pragmaticalization (Torgersen et al. 2018: 181).

References

Waltereit, Richard & Detges, Ulrich 2016, ‘Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization’. Ch. Gabriel, S. Fischer (eds.), Manuals of Romance Linguistics: Grammatical interfaces. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter; 635-658.

Torgersen, Eivind & Gabrielatos, Costas & Hoffmann, Sebastian 2018, ‘Corpus-based analysis of the pragmatic marker you get me’. Friginal, E. (ed.) 2018, Studies in Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics. London: Routledge; 176-196.