ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we address the question of the inter-relationship between language change in the community as a whole and change as experienced by individuals across their lifespan. We focus on three widespread variable phenomena in Brazilian Portuguese: the replacement of null referential subjects by overt pronouns, the loss of the accusative clitic, and the consequent implementation of anaphoric null objects – both changes from below – and increasing subject–verb number agreement – a change from above. Our main goal is to show that the alignment of the individual to community trends varies according to the type of change. Based on results from longitudinal analyses of 16 speakers, we show that in the case of changes from below, the great majority aligns with the community trend. However, in the specific change from above focused here, the behavior of speakers is more irregular.
