A DIACHRONIC STUDIE ABOUT THE ORDER AND THE FUNCTION OF CLITIC SE IN THE CLASSICAL PORTUGUESE

Abstract

ABSTRACT

In the history of Portuguese, the syntax of clitic pronouns is an important subject of study to understand the gramatical changes, therefore. Galves, Paixão de Sousa and Namiuti (2006) contrast two important aspects of the Portuguese diachronic: the interpolation phenomena and the proclisis and enclisis variation. Among the other types of clitic, the SE is noteworthy for presenting a different behavior: while the other clitics are associated exclusively to the object syntactic function, SE can be associated to the subject or object functions. Based on Brito, Duarte e Matos (2003), we characterize three types of SE associated with the subject and object function: the passive SE, where the internal argument agrees with the direct transitive verb and receives the nominative case, and SE as a passive morpheme related to the subject; the indefinite SE in sentences in which the verb does not agree with its internal argument, in which the SE gets the nominative case and the representation of an arbitrary or indefinite subject; and SE as a reflexive pronoun, in this case SE gets the accusative case of direct transitive verb. According to Cavalcante (2006), studying the occurrences of SE in non-finite clauses in three variants of the Portuguese, the change in the nature of SE follows the change in frequency of proclisis and enclisis in Portuguese diachronic that comprehend the passage of the grammar of Classical Portuguese to European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. In this dissertation we start from the assumption that the nature of SE influences its relative order in proclisis and enclisis variation contexts and in proclisis and interpolation structures, we describe the use of clitic SE finite clauses, noting the possible existence of a relationship between the position and the type/function of this clitic in texts by Portuguese authors born in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from the Tycho Brahe Corpus of historical Portuguese. The use of SE associated with the subject function, passive SE and indefinte SE, seems to favor the enclitic placement in variation contexts, even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which the frequency of proclisis is superior, because, in the distribution of the type of SE by placing, the frequency of enclisis for these two types of SE remain quite high in the contexts of enclisis/proclisis variation, the opposite happens with the SE as a reflexive pronoun that keeps high frequency of proclisis and marginal enclisis.