摘要：This article about the historical development of possessive pronouns in Portuguese discusses the diachronic evolution of the combination of possessive noun phrases with the definite article. While the definite article generally accompanies noun phrases with possessive pronouns in contemporary Portuguese, it is systematically absent in the same context in 13th century Old Portuguese. This can either be accounted for in terms of a change in the paradigm of possessive forms which in the course of their diachronic development lost the ability to fulfil the function of a definite determiner, or in terms of a progressive extension of article use to possessive contexts. This paper argues that the second option is adequate. On the basis of a quantitative and qualitative corpus study of the distribution of possessive noun phrases in texts from the XIII to the XIX century, it is shown that variable use of the article relates to its function as a topic marker. The analysis implies that the presence or absence of the article does not necessarily indicate the categorial status of the possessive as adjective or determiner, nor does it relate directly to its status as a strong or weak pronominal element.
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