A Phonetic Study On Hakka Dialect In Guangdong Wengyuan

Wengyuan county where almost all people speak Hakka dialect in the north of Guangdong.Based on combining key investigation with supplementary investigation,The thesis adopts historical comparative method,geographical linguistic method,and experimental phonetics to study ten investigation sites.There are six chapters.The fisrt chapter is introduction,briefly introducing the history,geography and language of Wengyuan county.What's more,also introduces research status of Wengyuan Hakka dialect,research purposes and significances and methods,selection of investigation sites,sources of dialect data.The second chapter detailedly describes phonetic system of seven places and shows the phonology structure of Wengyuan Hakka dialect.The third chapter shows correspondence between present Wengyuan Hakka dialect and medieval phonology from initials,finals and tones.Furtherly,reveals phonology overview of Wengyuan Hakka dialect.The fourth chapter discusses phonetic features in two aspects: common phonetic features of Hakka dialect and unique features of Wengyuan Hakka dialect.Adopting geolinguistics draws phonetic features distribution on map.Mainly discusses the pronunciation differences of YU SHE third grade rhyme and proposes two probable evolution traces;analyses pronunciation of the voiced initials' tones and draws a conclusion:“The voiced QU belongs to SHANG” is a prominent feature and “The voiced SHANG belongs to QU” is an inapparent feature;demonstrates the distinctive feature between YANG PING and SHANG SHENG is duration and slope: the duration of YANG PING is shorter than SHANG SHENG and the slope of YANG PING is bigger than SHANG SHENG.The fifth chapter explores modern speaking pronunciation and evolution of JING,ZHUANG,ZHI,and ZHANG,the four initial groups and JIAN initial group in Wengyuan Hakka dialect.The modern speaking pronounciation of these five initial groups has obvious differences in Wengyuan Hakka dialect.Some dialect sites evolves into palatal,laminal,or apical.The reason for occurring palatalization of JING and JIAN initial group in northeastern Wengyuan is regional contact and we find palatalization is regional phonetic features in the border of northern Guangdong province and southern Jiangxi province.Some JIAN initial group occurs apical evolution in Bazi Hakka and apicalization exists in the eastern areas of Shaoguan.The sixth chapter summarize the first five chapters and divides Wengyuan Hakka dialect into three areas depending on internal differences of phonetic features.These three areas are SHANG XIANG dialect,XIA XIANG dialect,and ZHONG JIAN dialect.In the end,points out deficiency of the thesis and direction of further research.