The Phonology Study On Bingzhou Dialect Of Jin Group

Bingzhou area lies in the middle of Shanxi province, the dialects of this area, including16counties, belong to Bingzhou cluster of Jin group(晋语)。This paper focuses on the synchronic features and diachronic evolution of Bingzhou dialect, basing on the data investigated by the author and of related publications. It covers five chapters and the three of which constructs the main body of the paper.In the1st chapter, the author gives a general introduction of Bingzhou area, such as its geography, history and so on. Then a brief description of Bingzhou dialect, a review of previous research on this topic is presented, and the meaning of the research, purpose, materials and study methods are given.In Chapter Two the author talks about the initials of Bingzhou dialect. The voiced syllable initials, the ni(æ³¥)initial, the zhi(知),zhuang (庄)and zhang(ç« )initials, and the ying(å½±)and yi(ç–‘)initals are discussed in this chapter, comparing with neighbor dialects and MC phonology system. In Bingzhou Dialect, the voiced syllable initials, including bing(并), ding(定),cong(从),xie(邪),cheng(澄),chuang(床),shan(禅),qun(群), xia(匣)initals, are unaspirated after being devoiced. In Bingzhou dialect, ni initial has two starting points, one of the3rd grade rims, the other being the1st grade, the2nd grade, and the4th grade rims, which reflects that niang(娘)initial had existed in MC phonological system. In Bingzhou dialect, the zhi,, zhuang, and zhang initials pronounces [ts] in mainly areas. But in some areas, the zhi of the2nd grade rims and zhuang initial pronouncing [ts], are different from the zhi of3rd grade rims and zhang initial pronouncing [ts], which represents the early phonological strata. The ying and yi initials have close relationship in Bingzhou dialect. The yi initial is a nasal mostly, and the ying initial merges with yi initial in the1st grade rims and2nd grade rims, which canbe traced back to the Northwestern dialects during the Song Dynasty.Chapter three is a study on rhymes. After the description of yin (阴),yang(阳)and ru (å…¥)rims, the author get the rhymes pattern of Bingzhou dialect. Bingzhou dialect preserves the distinguish of the1st grade rime between the2nd grade rime existed in MC period, which reflects in xian(å'¸)and shan(å±±)group. On colloquial layers, the zeng (曾)and geng (梗)group have merged with the3rd and the4th grade of xie(蟹)and zhi(æ­¢)group. In dang-jiang(宕江),zeng and geng group, the nasal final disappeared, the vowel will be raising. In the4th chapter, the tones are discussed. This part describes tone patterns and features. In addition, the author especially analyses the entering tone of the Ping tone(平声)and Ru tone (入声)At the last part of this chapter, the tone evolution process and its trend of development are proposed.The last chapter is discussion about the importance of Bingzhou dialect in Jin group.