The Linguistic Development of Goodbye. A Lexicalisation Process

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: There is no language on earth that did not undergo several major or minor changes in the course of time. The English language of course, is no exception and has changed both in grammatical and lexical fields. In modern days, it is taken for granted that people use certain words or phrases to end a conversation, which as a matter of fact, is not a new phenomenon to be observed. It would as much have been considered impolite back then as it is today, not to follow this path. One word that even young learners of English have integrated in their language use of today is the word goodbye. Even though many prefer to use the shortened form bye, the longer goodbye is still very common. But what many English speakers do not know is the fact that, in earlier times goodbye was associated with a religious blessing, which is a shortened form of a former farewell, called God be with you and was used in many texts in the time of the Early Modern English period.