As formas de referência ao interlocutor ao longo de dois séculos em cartas portuguesas

There are several studies about the forms of reference to the interlocutor in Brazilian Portuguese, which made it possible to establish an overview on the subject in this variety. However, there are still few studies, especially of a quantitative nature, on the subject in the context of European Portuguese. Therefore, the present study aims to make a brief analysis of the forms of treatment used as a subject pronoun, in European Portuguese, based on the analysis of personal letters, written between the 19th and 20th centuries. For this, we started from the main hypothesis that tu would be the most used form and the pronoun você would be less frequent because it is negatively marked, having very specific contexts for its use. In general, the main hypothesis was confirmed, however, other treatment strategies were used, such as Vossa Mercê and other nominal forms, being even more used than tu (null or full), depending on the theme of the letters and the relationship sphere and the level of intimacy of the writers.