This work aimed the description of the syntactic- discursive behavior of the clitic pronoun lhe in the formal variety of the written Portuguese modality. Concerned with the investigation of the semantic and syntactic properties of the lhe utilization, the analysis focus on the very separation between the semantic and formal plans, which have been associated in order to determine the syntactic-discursive functions of this pronoun. Our research, of a functionalist basis, was done after the presupposition that the so called indirect object, variety of dative and function typically performed by the lhe pronoun, constitute a heterogeneous and not well defined syntactic function that covers unduly, in the traditional grammar, other dative uses. Therefore, we concluded that the lhe pronoun has got other syntactic- discursive functions pondered neither by the grammar tradition nor by the more recent studies, that can not be assembled under the same label of indirect object.