(iv) Linguistic behavior may then “freeze” into recurrent and stable linguistic structures, i.e. become routinized or entrenched in the linguistic system. It is this final entrenched stage of a linguistic unit that is usually referred to as “motivated”. We will refer to this final stage as the target of a motivational process. We need to emphasize, however, that motivation in language not only operates on the diachronic level but also on the synchronic level. On the basis of the above-mentioned criteria we propose the following working definition for motivation: