From a very early age, in the first years of our school life, we come into contact with the Portuguese language and its grammar, a compendium of rules (and some exceptions) about the functioning of the language. When we study grammar classes, we study the pronouns, which we know to be a class of words capable of replacing, referencing or qualifying a name in the clause.
However, we do not always learn about the versatility of pronouns at school. Yes, pronouns can appear differently in a sentence — hence the expression “versatility” —, with its altered semantic charge, that is, with a meaning different from that which is usually assigned. In a speech, usually two people are determined: me (the person corresponding to the speaker) and you (the person corresponding to the speaker). There is also a third person, this one indeterminate, that points to another person or thing that is part of the communicative relationship.
To understand more about the versatility of pronouns, especially the pronouns treatment
, it is important to highlight some elements of communication and their functions within the discourse. Watch:Speaker: the person who speaks;
Speaker: the person you talk to,
Speaker: the person you are talking about.
Observing the differences, follow some examples of pronominal versatility in specific cases of the Portuguese language:
An “I” that expresses another person:
“O my love has a gentle way that's just yours
Is that me make it crazy when me kiss the mouth
THE mine all skin gets goose bumps
AND me kiss calmly and deeply
Until minelma feel kissed (...)”.
You read a fragment of the song in the example above. My love, by Chico Buarque, a clear demonstration that the me is expressing someone else. You possessive pronouns and highlighted obliques, despite being referencing a possible first person of the speech, do not concern the person who speaks, they are, therefore, delocutive pronouns. This phenomenon happens a lot in texts that adopt the literary language, in which the call is present I lyrical.
When "he" is me:
“If you behave yourself, Mommy will take you to the amusement park”.
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There are some cases where the "he" stops referring to a third person to become a elocutive pronoun, that is, in these cases, the pronoun he it moves to the place of first person in the speech, thus making reference to the person who speaks. In the case of the sentence that illustrates this occurrence, it is clear that a mother is talking to her child, and the word “mama” corresponds to the pronoun “she” in the speech.
The us that doesn't include us:
“Like we are, mr. João? we pass well at night?”
The above sentence could have been said by a doctor who visits a patient in his room first thing in the morning. It is clear that, despite employing the first person plural (us), the doctor is not included in the speech itself, thus showing the option to use a allocutive pronoun, which is referring to the person you are talking to.
Who are you"?
“You spend years studying, (you)go to university, (you)go to the masters, (you go to the) doctorate, but you does not get a good placement in the job market... What an injustice!”
Did you manage to identify who the “you” is in the speech above? Is the speaker referring to a second person? Although the pronoun "you" has this function in the speech, in this specific case it assumes the role of the first person, becoming a elocutive pronoun. This option was taken so that the reader or the interlocutor can feel as the speaker felt in the situation described.
“He" is 2nd person:
Does the friend, seeing the lonely friend, ask?
“Can I make you company?"
To which she replies:
“He still question!".
This "he" became, according to the context of the sentence, a 2nd person treatment pronoun, because instead of the friend responds “Are you still asking?”, she says, as if surprised by the request, “He still question!". Therefore, the "he" was displaced from its usual meaning, taking the place of the you or from you.
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters