Lexical convergence and divergence in Portuguese 65EP. Looking at the lower part of Table 7, we can see an increase of A’UNI
and a decrease of A’ENDO in EP from 1970 to 2000. This may suggest
movement towards BP, although the fact that the increase of A’EXO is
higher in BP than in EP poses a problem for such a suggestion.
An important question is to determine what is more significant: the in-
crease in exogenous terms or the decrease in endogenous terms. If we com-
pare the increase of the EXO proportion and the decrease of the ENDO pro-
portion, we notice that the growth of the EXO proportion is, in the majority
of cases, more marked than the decrease of the ENDO proportion in BP and
EP (except in EP from 1970 to 2000), and this trend is even more noticea-
ble in BP than EP. All this means that the two varieties (BP more than EP)
adopted more exogenous terms than they gave up endogenous terms during
these time periods. In relation to the apparent shifting of BP towards EP
from 1950 to 1970, this would imply an exogenous approach, which ap-
pears to suggest a movement oriented towards EP. However, we have to
analyze other internal features so as to offer a more considered interpreta-
tion of this nearing of the varieties.
Table 8. Evolution of bi-national, endogenous and exogenous clothing terms
A’UNIp50,b50(P50) > A’UNIp70,b70(P70) > A’UNIp00,b00(P00)
75,76 67,10 57,78
A’EXOp50,b50(P50) ≅ A’EXOp70,b70(P70) ≅ A’EXOp00,b00(P00)
3,31 3,61 4,50
A’ENDOp50,b50(P50) < A’ENDOp70,b70(P70) < A’ENDOp00,b00(P00)
20,93 29,30 37,72
A’UNIb50,p50(B50) > A’UNIb70,p70(B70) > A’UNIb00,p00(B00)
82,20 65,50 54,84
A’EXOb50,p50(B50) ≅ A’EXOb70,p70(B70) ≅ A’EXOb00,p00(B00)
1,83 4,59 4,74
A’ENDOb50,p50(B50) < A’ENDOb70,p70(B70) < A’ENDOb00,p00(B00)
15,96 29,91 40,42Let’s now look at clothing terms. Table 8 shows that the global divergence
observed earlier is associated with two internal changes: one is the decrease
in binational terms; the other change, having a greater impact than the pre-
vious one, is the increasing number of endogenous terms on both sides –
16.79% in EP (from 20.93% to 37.72%) and 24.46% in BP (from 15.96%
to 40.42%). Another conclusion drawn from Table 8 is that the Brazilian