0 to become or to make something become a fossil (= something preserved in rock for a very long period): --
When the conditions of acquisition are less advantageous, the learner language is likely to fossilize at a lower level of proficiency, which is often the basic variety.
It will be important below that the phonological environment in which the ex-process occurred (its 'structural description') is also fossilized, as the 'exceptions' to a change.
The length of the present test section is not sufficient to reach the fossilized state and the data can support no firm conclusions with respect to a fully fossilized turbulence.
We cannot unequivocally eliminate an ancient origin because the chemical signatures are similar to those of the fossil substrates, raising the possibility that they were fossilized together.
Also, it cannot be ruled out that this first planktonic stage did not possess a calcified exoskeleton, which may explain why it has not been fossilized.
In such a situation the tendency for it to fossilize into ritualized officialese is increased because the countervailing influences of less formal varieties of the language are not so strong.
Close morphological resemblance to contemporaneous microorganisms and other fossilized microorganisms further support that interpretation.
The prediction, then, is that successful resetting is impossible, and the interlanguage grammar of every learner will fossilize at the nontargetlike value.
