An Investigation Into The Features Of Lishui Dialect

Lishui dialect belongs to the southern Wu dialects. As little work has been done on it so far, this thesis attempts to conduct a systematic investigation into its phonetic, lexical and grammatical features through descriptive, inductive and comparative research methods. It includes five parts, i.e., introduction, phonetic features, lexical features, grammatical features and conclusion. This paper provides a brief introduction to Lishui including geographical features, transportation, history, dialects in Lishui and the relevant studies at home and abroad. And then it focuses on the exploration of the phonetic, lexical and grammatical features of Lishui dialect.It is found in the present study that, in terms of phonetic features, Lishui dialect accords with the southern Wu dialects; Compared with other Wu dialects, Lishui dialect is more similar to Mandarin in morphology and phonology; Lishui dialect has some distinct syntactic features. And the making of the features is ascribed to its political status as the administrative centre of Lishui Prefecture ever since the Sui Dynasty, and the frequent population immigration as well.