Vowel harmonization in Brazilian and in São Tomé Portuguese and the raising of the pre-stress /e

This article draws on the tenets of Variationist Sociolinguistics (LABOV, 1972, 1994, 2001) to examine the influence of the process of vocal harmonisation on raising of the pre-stress / e / in the Brazilian and São Tomé varieties of Portuguese. Few studies have been published on the African varieties of Portuguese and Portuguese-based creoles. As a result, the characteristics of their phonological systems remain to be investigated. Rocha’s findings (2018) on the urban variety of São Tomé Portuguese confirm the hypothesis of Marquilhas (2003) that it approaches “Brazilian Portuguese in vowel harmonisation and in insubordination to the general rule of reduction” recurrent in European Portuguese. Furthermore, they suggest similarities with what is found in Portuguese-based creoles and, especially in Forro, the creole most spoken in São Tomé. It was thus decided to compare these findings with those of Yacovenco (1993) and Rocha (2013), drawn from municipalities in Rio de Janeiro State, and with the descriptions by Ferraz (1979, 1987) and Hagemeijer (2009) of vocalism in Gulf of Guinea creoles. The aim is to demonstrate that a trend already confirmed in a number of languages – the influence of the following high vowel on raising of the pre-stress front vowel – exists in the non-European varieties of Portuguese.