This study presents a thorough account of the structure and position of the subject in spoken Portuguese considering its syntactic and discursive roles. It is a quantitative study of language use. It discusses the variation between pronominal and zero subjects. It explains why the use of pronominal subjects is more frequent than zero ones. It discusses the variation of the position of subjects and shows that the choice between SV and VS syntax is almost exclusively limited to nominal subjects and is constrained by pragmatic considerations.