Reflexivity in Portuguese Formulaic Language. Variation and Stability in Response to Linguistic Experience

Abstract Our understanding of language change has been shown to benefit from considering prominent cognitive processes investigated in usage-based language research. Specifically, robust processes observed in formulaic language studies can be evaluated in terms of the predictions they make about language change. We consider one of its manifestations, the loss of reflexivity marking. While this study focuses primarily on eroding reflexivity in Portuguese, the factors involved play a role in this evolution more generally. We assume that it is a potential scenario in other languages that mark reflexivity overtly, of which English is one example. One factor investigated here is semantic autonomy, which is associated with chunking. Based on corpus data, we identify conspicuous pockets of resistance to change. Despite the pervasive degree of the erosion attested across all types of reflexive verbs, some exceptional verbs resist the trend of omission of the reflexive marker. This is a demonstration of the impact that formulaic processing has on the maintenance of reflexivity and, more generally, on the speakers’ cognitive representations of language knowledge. The observed variability of reflexive marking calls for an account of how formulaic language is processed in the mind. The hypothesis being proposed here is that fixed phrases undergo both analytic and holistic processing simultaneously.