This poster presents a new research project on degrammaticalization of French and Dutch compounds. Some compounds seem to give rise to syntactic constructions, which provides evidence for the degrammaticalization hypothesis (cf. Norde 2009). This phenomenon can be illustrated by French -clé, which productively takes part in compounds such as mot-clé 'keyword' and facteur-clé 'key factor', but can also be found in recent uses on the Internet and in the press in combination with adverbial modifiers (e.g. c’est un mot vraiment clé ‘it is really key word’), with complex noun phrases (e.g. les secteurs économiques clés ‘the key economic sectors’), in predicative contexts (e.g. ce mot est clé ‘this word is key’) and even in superlative constructions (e.g. le point le plus clé ‘the most key point’) (Amiot & Van Goethem, submitted). A parallel phenomenon applies to Dutch intensifying morphemes such as bere 'lit. bear' (e.g. beresterk 'as strong as a bear), stapel 'lit. pile' (e.g. stapelgek 'completely crazy') and kei 'lit. rock' (e.g. keihard 'rock-hard') (cf. Hiligsmann & Meurs 2007) which also occur as adverbs and / or adjectives (e.g. het was daar bere gezellig 'it was very cosy there'; ik ben stapel op jou 'I am madly in love with you'; het was een kei feestje 'it was a great party'). The central aim of the research project will consist in investigating the differences between Dutch and French with respect to the productivity and the degree to which compounds are degrammaticalized and accounting for the mechanisms behind this degrammaticalization process. References Amiot, D. & Van Goethem, K. (submitted). "Le statut de -clé et de sleutel- dans mot-clé / sleutelwoord. Une analyse unifiée?". Abstract submitted to the Congrès Mondial de Linguistique française (CMLF-2010), New Orleans, July 12-15, 2010. Hiligsmann, Ph. & Meurs, Chr. 2007. “Het gebruik van samengestelde adjectieven met een versterkend betekenisaspect in het Nederlands”. Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor ...