72 Augusto Soares da Silva
parameters in the vocabulary related to football, we can see that the low
percentage of Brazilian terms in EP is reflected by the low exogenousness
values in this variety in each period and by small changes of these values
through time. Brazilian terms are not the only exogenousness factor in EP
(or of endogenousness in BP). The sequential calculation in Table 7 shows
that there is a stronger increase of exogenousness in BP than in EP. There-
fore, the feature of the Brazilian terms does not seem to have influenced
greatly the global convergent tendency between the two varieties.
4.4. The mutual impact of uniformity and item-related features
We will now examine the extent to which the main item-related features
(that is, endo-/exogenousness and loanwords) influence the uniformity U
values and, then, contribute to the global evolution. A first answer is given
with the graphs of Figures 3 and 4. The results obtained for each variable
are weighted measurements (ENGL>PORT identifies English terms that were
adapted and LOAN represents all the loanwords in general). A negative cor-
relation is always observed between U’ and ENDO’, and a negative correla-
tion between U’, EXO’, ENGL’ and LOAN’, except in the field of football as
regards the European variety (where the correlation is positive). A positive
correlation is observed between U’ and FREN’ in the field of clothing.
Therefore, we have the same pattern for both varieties in the field of cloth-
ing and the same one for both lexical fields, except for the European varie-
ty. This means that uniformity U decreases when ENDO, EXO, ENGL and
LOAN increase, and uniformity U rises when these item-related features lose
ground.
The first two correlations do not come as a surprise: as we have seen in
4.1., the increase in uniformity corresponds to a decrease in endogenous-
ness and exogenousness. There is an exception, though, in the vocabulary
concerning football in EP. The negative correlation between U and
ENG/LOAN is associated with the asymmetry between the two varieties in
their accessibility to import and adapt loanwords, in general, and English
loans, in particular (BP being more accessible than EP). The positive corre-
lation between these same features in the football vocabulary in EP can also
be associated with this asymmetry, because if more English loans exist in
EP then the uniformity with BP is higher. Furthermore, the positive correla-
tion between U and FREN in the clothing vocabulary in both varieties can be
interpreted as a specific effect of the semantic field in question; both varie-