Portuguese personal pronouns

The Portuguese personal pronouns and possessives display a higher degree of inflection than other parts of speech. Personal pronouns have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject (nominative), a direct object (accusative), an indirect object (dative), or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions. The Portuguese personal pronouns and possessives display a higher degree of inflection than other parts of speech. Personal pronouns have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject (nominative), a direct object (accusative), an indirect object (dative), or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions. The possessive pronouns are the same as the possessive adjectives, but each is inflected to express the grammatical person of the possessor and the grammatical gender of the possessed. Pronoun use displays considerable variation with register and dialect, with particularly pronounced differences between the most colloquial varieties of European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. The personal pronouns of Portuguese have three basic forms: subject, object (object of a verb), and prepositional (object of a preposition). Like most European languages, Portuguese has different words for 'you', according to the degree of formality that the speaker wishes to show towards the addressee (T-V distinction). In very broad terms, tu, você (both meaning singular 'you') and vocês (plural 'you') are used in informal situations, while in formal contexts o senhor, a senhora, os senhores and as senhoras (masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural 'you', respectively) are preferred. However, there is considerable regional variation in the use of these terms, and more specific forms of address are sometimes employed. Generally speaking, tu is the familiar form of address used with family, friends, and minors. Você indicates distance without deference, and tends to be used between people who are, roughly, social equals. O senhor / a senhora (literally 'sir'/'madam') are the most ceremonious forms of address. English speakers may find the latter construction akin to the parliamentary convention of referring to fellow legislators in the third person (as 'my colleague', 'the gentleman', 'the member', etc.), although the level of formality conveyed by o senhor is not as great. In fact, variants of o senhor and a senhora with more nuanced meanings such as titles as o professor ('professor'), o doutor ('doctor'), o colega ('colleague') and o pai ('father') are also employed as personal pronouns. In the plural, there are two main levels of politeness, the informal vocês or vós and the formal os senhores / as senhoras. This threefold scheme is, however, complicated by regional and social variation. For example, in many communities of Brazilian Portuguese speakers, the traditional tu/você distinction has been lost, and the previously formal você tends to replace the familiar tu in most cases (the distinction remains, however, in most parts of the country). On the other hand, in Portugal it is common to use a person's own name as a pronoun more or less equivalent to você, e.g., o José, o senhor Silva, which is rare in Brazil (though it is found in parts of the Northeast region, for example). The explicit use of 'você' may be discouraged in Portugal because it may sound too informal for many situations. When addressing older people or hierarchical superiors, modern BP speakers often replace você/tu and vocês with the expressions o(s) senhor(es) and a(s) senhora(s), which also require third-person verb forms and third-person reflexive/possessive pronouns (or, for the possessive, the expressions de vocês, do senhor, etc.). The expressions o(s) senhor(es) and a(s) senhora(s) are also used in formal contexts in modern EP, in addition to a large number of similar pronominalized nouns that vary according to the person who is being addressed, e.g. a menina, o pai, a mãe, o engenheiro, o doutor, etc. Historically, você derives from vossa mercê ('your mercy' or 'your grace') via the intermediate forms vossemecê and vosmecê