In Present-Day English, nearly functions as an approximator downtoner meaning ‘almost, all but, virtually,’ as do earlier variants based on the same root—nigh, nighly, near, next (to)—though more rarely and in more restricted contexts. Nigh functions as an approximator downtoner in Old and Middle English. When near displaces nigh, nigh is retained as a downtoner with lexical adjectives expressing negative semantic prosody. Near is used as a downtoner in later Middle and Early Modern English. However, degree adjunct uses are not well attested, thus pointing to incomplete grammaticalization. During the eighteenth century, the new -ly form (nearly) takes over the innovative downtoner function and the old form (near) is retained in the original locative sense, with some remnant downtoner uses. Next (to) grammaticalizes as a downtoner, but proceeds only to the degree modifier stage and involves a high degree of idiomaticization, thus suggesting incipient grammaticalization. As spatial adverbs, nigh/near/next (to)/nearly represent one of the well-known sources for the grammaticalization of degree adverbs. However, these forms seem to follow a pathway where the degree modifier use (adjective/participle modifier) precedes the degree adjunct use (verb modifier), contrary to the reverse pathway postulated for other degree adverbs.

在《今日英语》中，几乎像近似唐纳顿一样起作用，意思是“几乎，几乎全部，几乎是虚拟的”，与基于相同词根的早期变体（近，近，近，下一个（到））一样，尽管这种情况很少见，而且限制更严格上下文。在古英语和中古英语中，Nigh充当近似降噪器。当在附近移动附近时，附近会保留下来，作为带有否定语义韵律的词汇形容词的唐顿语。Near在后来的中古和早期现代英语中被用作唐顿音乐。但是，学位辅助使用没有得到充分证明，因此指出语法不完整。在十八世纪，新-ly形式（接近）接管了创新的唐纳色调功能，旧形式（接近）保留了原有的位置意义，并保留了一些残余的唐纳色调。Next（to）语法化为唐宁粉，但仅进行到程度修饰语阶段，涉及高度的惯用语化，因此建议初期语法化。由于空间副词，亲近/附近/旁边（到）/近代表程度副词语法化的知名来源之一。但是，这些形式似乎遵循一条路径，在该路径上，程度修饰语的使用（形容词/分词修饰语）先于程度副词使用（动词修饰语），这与其他程度副词所假定的反向途径相反。