After a short review of the history of relevant research, the work introduces and delimits the concepts related to grammaticalization. The third chapter provides extensive exemplification of grammaticalization phenomena in diverse languages, ordered according to grammatical domains such as the verbal, pronominal and nominal sphere and clause level relations. Chapter four presents a theory of grammaticalization which is based on the notion of the autonomy of the linguistic sign with respect to the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes. This is the basis of the essential structural paramaters which constitute grammaticalization. They are operationalized to the point that different degrees of gram-maticalization can be measured. This study was first distributed in 1982 as grey literature (Arbeiten des Kölner Universalienprojekts, 48). It was one of the pioneer works on the topic that led to a whole wave of studies on grammaticalization that is still going on. The semipublished version soon ran out of stock and has been in demand since then. It is here published for the first time, in a slightly revised version.