Discursive tradition and linguistic change: an approach of the grammaticalization

Abstract

This paper is focused on the item assim in correlation to its topic function in Tradições Discursivas (Discursive Traditions) which were investigated from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. In this study, qualitative and quantitative analyses are done. The results point out to a close relation between the investigated traditions and the changes that have occurred concerning the item mentioned above, from a historical conception of non-linear diachrony.