Grammaticalization of the strategies of negation in Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese exhibits three strategies of clausal negation. This work analyzes and interprets these strategies in the framework of Functional Linguistics. The analysis is based on a corpus of written and spoken material produced by students from different levels of schooling. The negative patterns are in variation, performing the same general discourse function of denying. It is assumed that variation reflects a linguistic change in progress. The study reveals the interaction of two competing motivations, one in the direction of restoring iconicity and the other leading to a decrease of iconicity, in a movement towards economy.