Tradi？？o discursiva e mudan？a no sistema de tratamento do português brasileiro: definindo perfis comportamentais no início do século XX

this paper analyses different patterns of forms of address in the pronominal system in brazilian portuguese in the beginning of the 20th century. the analysis is based on a sample of private letters written between 1906 and 1936. the analysis is based on two theoretical frameworks: sociolinguistics and discourse tradition model. the results show four different patterns in the period: (i) the exclusive usage of the intimate tu (you-sg.) in letters of "higher intimacy relationship"; (ii) the exclusive usage of você (you-sg derived from vossa mercê "your grace" or "your mercy") in letters of the same nature; (iii) the usage of intimate tu (you-sg) correlated with você (you-sg) pronominal paradigm, such as imperative-subjunctive moods in a specific section of the letter; (iv) the tu and você (you-sg) alternation in the same functional contexts but in a different morphosyntactic distribution: tu occurs with a higher rate in [+morphologized] contexts used as a verbal affix or an accusative/dative clitic (te) whereas você is more frequent in [-morphologized] contexts used as a strong pronoun (nominative or prepositional complement).