1993/03/01 by Vera Lúcia Paredes Silva · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · doi:10.1017/s0954394500001381
openalex publication_date 1993/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
ABSTRACT In Portuguese, subject pronouns may be omitted or expressed explicitly. This variable usage is often attributed to the richness of the system of verbal desinences. However, evidence drawn from a sample of informal written language—personal correspondence of people from Rio de Janeiro—shows that the most important constraints on pronoun usage in subject position are discouse-based. The pronoun tends to be used whenever it is needed to clarify or highlight the correct referent from among a set of possible candidates. Furthermore, the pronoun is less likely to occur when its clasue is tightly connected to the preceding discourse. The quantitative analysis presented here supports the hypothesis that pronoun usage is “functional” in the sense that semantically relevant information tends to be preserved in surface structure.