Word-prosody systems of the Creole languages of the Gulf of Guinea

Creole languages result from extreme linguitic contact between languages with distinct prosodic systems and often do not fit neatly into prototypical linguistic categories. For Atlantic Creole
languages, this process frequently involves contact between tone and stress languages, leading to the formation of prosodic systems that are difficult to define and/or phonologically mixed systems. This research aims to present a comparative phonological analysis of the suprasegmental systems of the four Portuguese-lexifier creole languages in the Gulf of Guinea: Lung’Ie, Santome, Angolar, and Fa d’Ambô, focusing on how tone was interpreted in the phonological systems of these languages. The four languages result from the contact between Portuguese, Edoid, and Bantu languages. Additionally, the research aims to propose a comparative phonological analysis to better understand the outcomes of language contact among linguistically diverse populations in the Gulf of Guinea. This analysis will be based on a corpus of fieldwork data collected by the researcher in São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea during several fieldwork trips. Ultimately, this investigation intends to explore the influence of language contact on the development of these systems while addressing pertinent issues in the prosodic typology of creole languages and African languages.