A concordância variável no sintagma nominal plural do português reestruturado de almoxarife (São Tomé)

This article is part of a study on the variable plural agreement in the noun phrase of a restructured African variety of Portuguese, spoken by the Almoxarife creole community of São Tomé island (they speak the Santomense creole, as well) and acquired in a special contact situation in the 19/20th centuries. With the description of the Almoxarife Portuguese’s variation we clarify the growth of plural marking in the NP structure across generations and make comparisons with the variable plural agreement of another two dialects: the Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese of the Tongas, spoken by descendents of Africans contracted on the Monte Café plantations of São Tomé, who acquired simultaneously the Umbundu, a Bantu language. By doing this, it will be possible to understand if the Portuguese acquired by the speakers of a Portuguese Based Creole in a special contact situation has the same variation patterns of the Portuguese that was acquired in an imperfect language shift situation where the ancestral language was not a Portuguese Based Creole. The final results may furnish some more data to the discussions that tries to find explanations about the phenomena that motivates the variable agreement in the noun phrase of the Brazilian Portuguese.