Form-function correlations in two periods of the twentieth century: evidence of the functional specialization

Abstract

As an outcome of grammaticalization processes, connectors e, aí and então have overlapped functions in Brazilian Portuguese. From the theoretical support provided by functional linguistics, this paper focuses on the patterns of correlation between e, aí and então and three of these functions: textual sequenciation, temporal sequenciation and effect introduction. The data come from the following sources: (i) The grapes of wrath, an novel written by John Steinbeck in 1939, which 1940 Brazilian translation brings markers of the dialect used in the thirties by working classes in the southest state of the country, Rio Grande do Sul; (ii) 48 interviews from the VARSUL Data Base, which were collected during the last decade of the XX century. The results, obtained through quantitative analysis, show that e, aí and então are used to code textual sequenciation, temporal sequenciation and effect introduction both in the first and second half of the XX century. However, the results also bring to light evidence that the patterns of function-form correlations have changed: in the thirties, aí and então are much less used to code some of these functions than they are in the nineties.