In my morphology class today, one of my students asked me for examples of anti-
grammaticalization. In other words, can you give me an example that shows a
historical change from a bound form to a free form? Examples of any language or
dialect will be fine.
My colleague gave me an example of English: /ism/, which can be used as a free
form now, in addition to a suffix.
I cannot find any Chinese examples.
Thank you.