The Comparative Study Of Speech Sound Of Wu Dialect And Jianghuai Mandarin

the introduction to modern Chinese dialect (Hou Jingyi;2002) divided Chinese dialect into nine kinds within the borders of china. They are Mandarin, Jin Dialect, Wu Dialect, Hui Dialect, Xiang Dialect, Gan Dialect, Hakka, Cantonese and Minnan Dialect. Jianghuai Mandarin is a kind of Mandarin, mainly distributed on the north part of Yangzi River in Anhui and Jiangsu Province (except the districts of Xu Zhou and Beng Bu, which belongs to Northern dialect region). Of course, the riversides on the south of Yangzi River, to the east of Jiujiang and to the west of Zhen Jiang are also included in the Jianghuai Mandarin Region.(Yuan Jiahua,2001) Language Atlas of China(Chinese Faculty of Social Sciences, Australian Faculty of Humanities,1990), the atlas divided Jiang Huai Dialect into three regions from west to the east. They are Huangxiao sub-dialect, Hongchao sub-dialect and Tairu sub-dialect."The modern Wu Dialect Mainly distributes in the South pare of Jiang Su Province, the whole part of Zhe Jiang Province, Shanghai and small part of Fu Jian, An Hui Province.(Hou Jingyi,2002:67) Language Atlas of China(Chinese Faculty of Social Sciences, Australian Faculty of Humanities,1990), the atlas divided Wu Dialect into six regions: Taihu sub-dialect, Taizhou sub-dialect, O’jiang sub-dialect, Wuzhou sub-dialect, Chuqu sub-dialect, Xuanzhou sub-dialect. In accordance with Professor Zhao’s suggestion, the thesis take Hui Dialect as a part of Wu Dialect. So Wu Dialect of Huizhou Region is added as subcategory. In the case of region distribution, the Wu Dialect Region is contiguous to Jiang Huai Mandarin Region. Furthermore, they have something in common on the phonetic features. For example, most of the dialect sites in Wu Dialect Region keep the entering system of Mediaeval times. This reservation include tone value of entering and glottal. The same is true with Jiang Huai Mandarin. It has entering, stop ending, and also some sets of final of entering system. Such features of Jiang Huai Mandarin can’t be finding in other Mandarin Region. The second example is the change of mediaeval nasal tail vowel; Wu Dialect Region and Jiang Huai Mandarin Region reach a high coherence in this aspect. The common points are these:the tail vowel of [-m] is already disappeared or translate into other tail vowel. Shan She are almost not pronounce the tail vowel of [-n]. The each merge of Xianshan She, Shenzhen She, Dangjiang She is clear. Tong She fully kept by many dialect site. The third example is ending of the entering finals. When such occasion occurs in Wu Dialect Region and Jiang Huai Mandarin, the tones are almost classify into that phonetic system as falling tone. However, there are some differences in phonetic features between Wu Dialect region and Jianghuai Mandarin region. For example:firstly, Nilai Mu are mixing in Jianghuai Mandarin region, while in Wu Dialect region are not. Secondly, the Wu Dialect region comoaratively fully kept Mediaveal times completely voiced initial consonant system.(except for Shexian voiceless) While in Jianghuai Mandarin region they are completely voiceless. Generally speaking, voiceless follow plosive, affricate, send air with level tone, and don’t send air with obligue tone. Thirdlly, Yingyi Mu are not mixing in Wu Dialect region. Ying Mu are ususlly sound without initial consonant, Yi Mu are ususlly sound with [(?)]. However, the Jianghuai Mandarin region is on the contary. Fourthly, in the aspect of entering, though Wu Dialect region and Jianghuai Mandarin region have many similarities in the pattern of manifestation, but through the analysis of their Mediaeval times source, we find that they are different in properties. In addition, the Wu Dialect region have more tones(especially in Southern Wu Dialect), while the Jianghuai Mandarin region have less tones. Ri Mu display a tendency toward nasalization in Wu Dialect region, nowadays, they are read as [n] and [(?)]. While in Jianghuai Mandarin region display a tendency toward fricationalized, nowadays, they are read as [z]. The thesis will choose ten representative dialect sites in Wu Dialect region and Jianghuai Mandarin region as the object of study, and try to make a overall comparison on phonetic features about Wu Dialect and Jianghuai Mandarin on the basis of database.