Tone and accent in Saramaccan: charting a deep split in the phonology of a language

Saramaccan, an Atlantic creole spoken in Surinam, has traditionally been analyzed as exhibiting a high-tone/low-tone opposition in its lexicon. However, while it is true that part of its lexicon exhibits a robust high/low opposition, the majority of its words are marked not for tone but pitch accent. The Saramaccan lexicon, therefore, is split with some words being marked for tone and other words marked for accent. This lexical split has important effects in the phrasal phonology of the language which, like the lexicon, is a mix between a tonal phrasal system and an accentual one.