This study consists of an examination of the connector então in Brazilian formal spoken Portuguese. The objective is to arrive at a detailed description of the syntatical and semantic behavior of this joining word and to ascertain whether it has already become grammaticalized as a conjunction. The research base is a sample of the minimum corpus of the Spoken Portuguese Grammar Project (PGPF). The text is organised in four parts. In the first, the objectives are set out in relation to the hypotheses underpinning the work; on the second, the methodological procedures and investigative techniques are presented; the third part consists of a description of the use of this conector in spoken Portuguese, and the concluding remaks summarise the principal consequences for a more precise equating of the conclusive relationship obtained by means of the connector então.
conclusive conjunction; gramaticalization; então; logo
