Gramaticalização de "você": um processo de perda de informação semântica?

Abstract

The change process that occurs with the forms vossa mercê > você > cê, analysed in Vitral (1996) and Ramos (1997), is resumed in this paper which discusses the nature of semantic modification found in the literature on grammaticalization. We argue that the process above must be described as a loss of virtual reference (Milner, 1982) and not as a loss of semantic substance, which, on the other hand, is adequate to describe the expletive usage of the form você.