UMA HISTÓRIA SOBRE “TER” E “HAVER”

Abstract

Grammaticalization is a type of syntactic change by which a semantically contentive lexical element becomes a grammatical element. This paper presents the historical development of the Portuguese verbs haver and ter over time as an example of grammaticalization. It is the contention of this paper that the semantic loss experienced by these lexical items, combined with general principles of grammar, as posited by Chomsky in his Minimalist Program (1995), suffice to account for the fact that such verbal elements have developed from lexical categories into functional ones.