A Study On The Pronunciation Of The Xifu Dialect In Guanzhong, Shaanxi

Guanzhong in this paper refers to the Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi Province. Since the Song Dynasty, the eastern part and the western part of Guanzhong Plain have belonged to different administrative management with different cultural and psychological identities. Traditionally, the eastern part is recognized as "Dongfu" and the western part as "Xifu" by the local people. This differentiation is well marked by their respective dialects. "Xifu" is what is known as Baoji district, which consists of the city of Baoji and nine surrounding counties. The city of Baoji is divided into three sections:Jintai Qu, Weibin Qu, Chencang Qu. The nine counties are:Linyou County, Qishan County, Taibai County, Fengxiang County, Fufeng County, Feng County, Mei County, Qianyang County, Long County, most of whose dialects belong to the Qinlong cluster of Zhongyuan Mandarin, except the southern area of Feng County and Taibai County, whose dialects belong to Xi'nan Mandarin owning to its geographic closeness to Southern Shaanxi.With a comprehensive and profound investigation of 17 selected dialects of the Qinlong cluster of Zhongyuan Mandarin in Xifu, this paper attempts to provide an overall view of the phonetic system, and to reveal their shared phonetic features as well as the differences among different dialects of Xifu. The paper also aims at a horizontal comparison and vertical study of some important phonetic phenomenon.This paper consists of seven chapters.Chapter One briefly gives an introduction to the geographical background, the origin and development, as well as the general linguistic situation of Xifu dialects and further provides a brief comment on the dialectological situation of the Qinlong cluster of Zhongyuan Mandarin since the 20th century; In this chapter, the author also introduces the subjects, methods and value of this research.Chapter Two describes the phonological system of the 11 chosen dialects of Xifu respectively. And Chapter Three compares the phonological system of Xifu and the mediaeval phonological system.Chapter Four to Chapter Seven form the major part of this paper, which cover four topics:the archaic evolvements of the voiced initial consonants; the evolvements of "Duan-Jing-Jian" consonant groups before "Qi-Chi-Hu" final sounds;the conversion between "Kou" and "Hu" in the ancient and modern final sounds drift; the tone of the neutralization and the two weakening types of syllables in synchronic sandhi. These variations could be made by the inner elements or the external elements. On one hand, the conflict among the inner elements accounts for the changes of the phonological structure of the dialect. On the other hand, the spreading of certain authorized language may cause competition among dialects, which may eventually absorb the external phonemic elements into their own phonology. So these variations show that phonemes may exist in different drifting levels in the homogeneous structure and that the phonological structures are overlapping in heterogeneous structures. These are the two factors that have contributed to the changes of the phonological structures. This paper has two focuses:the changes of the phonological structure of the dialects caused by the forms, conditions, directions and levels of evolvement of within the Qinlong cluster of dialects; the changes of the phonological structure of the dialects caused by competition with dialects beyond this cluster.The main findings are:First, the ancient voiced consonant initials are originally aspirated. As they evolved, they became aspirated voiceless consonant initials whatever they occur in level tones or oblique tones, thus formed the pattern of "aspirated in both level tones and oblique tone", which in turn influenced the originally un-aspirated voiceless consonant initials to become aspirated. In the competition with authoritative dialect and standard mandarin, the pattern of "aspirated in both level tones and oblique tone" became less influential and is preserved at different levels in different counties of Xifu.Second, when the ancient "Duan-Jing-Jian" consonant groups occur before "Qi-Chi-Hu" final sounds, they have four combination types in Xifu dialects, which resulted from two drifting lines. "Seperation of Duan-Jing-Jian consonant groups" is the early stage of "Mergence of Duan-Jing groups and independence of Jian group", which shows Xifu's own drifting line. An obvious example of this drifting line is found in the dialect spoken in the city of Baoji, where Jing group are found pronounced as predorsals while Jian group are pronounced as palatals, which signals the strong push chain shift in the attempt of maintaining the "separation of Jian-Tuan groups ". "Combination of Jing-Jian groups" and "Independence of Duan group" shows the second drifting line influenced by Northern China Mandarin. The contact and inter-communication of the two lines resulted the fourth combination type:"Total Mergence of Duan-Jing-Jian groups". It can be forecasted that "Mergence of Duan-Jing groups and independence of Jian group" is still the main drifting line in the future, but "Total Mergence of Duan-Jing-Jian groups" could be the final result in the evolvement of the dialectal phonology of Xifu Dialects.Third, based on the phonetic traits of Xifu dialects, the author of this paper proposed the concept of "Kou Hu", which may provides a link between the ancient and modern final sounds. "Kou" means "Kaikou" or "Hekou" in the ancient final sound system. "Hu" means "Kaikouhu" "Qichihu", "Hekouhu" or "Cuokouhu" in today's final sound system. The "Hekou" sounds in "Zhi" consonant groups are pronounced as "Kaikouhu" in several Xifu dialects, which is a rare phenomenon and is a drifting feature within Xifu dialectical system. The "Kaikou" "Dang-Jiang-She" final sound groups, when occur after the "Zhi" consonant group and pronounced in level tone, rising and falling tone or falling tone are uttered as "Kaikouhu", while they are uttered "Hekouhu" when pronounced in entering tone. The former circumstance develops faster than the latter. Restricted by the balance requirement of the phonetic structure, "Hekou Sansideng" "Jing group" are, instead of being pronounced as "Cuokouhu", they are pronounced as "Hekouhu". This feature again shows the central role that "Jing consonant group" plays in the syllables.Fourth, the tone of the neutralization and the two weakening types of syllables in synchronic sandhi in modern Chinese are motivated by disyllabism. The tone of the neutralization in synchronic sandhi, which is frequently found in the dialects in Northeastern China, refers to the phenomena in which untoned syllables are toned. Grammatically and stylistically speaking, the tone of the neutralization is similar to what is known as the untoned syllable in standard mandarin. After a careful comparative study, the author finds that this phenomena also exists in many other dialects used in Dongfu, Northwestern China. and even exits in overseas Dungan language. The author, thus concludes that this phenomenon reflects the early form of the Northwestern dialects and it also reflects trend of "weakening of syllable tone and strengthening of word tone". This finding enriches the types of untoned syllables, therefore contributes to the theoretical study of untoned syllables in standard mandarin. The author not only describes the two weakening types of syllables in Xifu dialects, she also adopted the speech experimental method to make the physical characteristics of phonetic changes more visible and concrete. The characteristics include:the extension of the major vowel in the final sounds, which is reflected by the increase of duration of sound on the sonogram; a syllable is weakened into a retroflex central or middle unrounded vowel. The two weakening types of syllables in Xifu dialects are different in form and are used in different counties of Xifu. They reflect the two phases in the "chain" of the weakening process of syllables.