A Study On The Phonological System Of Pingliang Kongtong Dialect

Kongtong District of Pingliang City is located in the eastern part of Gansu Province.The dialect belongs to Qinlong Section of Zhongyuan Mandarin.The Chinese dialect in Pingliang Kongtong District is the research object of this paper,the research mainly includes the phonological tones,homophone vocabulary,phonetic variation,the comparison of ancient and modern phonetics and the change of Pingliang dialect in the past century.There are 24 initials,33 vowels and 4 monosyllables in Pingliang Kongtong dialect,and 347 syllables without tone distinction.The phonological changes in Pingliang Kongtong dialect include tone sandhi,dissimilation between literary and vernacular pronunciation,erhua,ziwei,synphony,assimilation and alienation.Through synchronic comparison with Beijing pronunciation,we can see that Pingliang Kongtong dialect and Beijing pronunciation have four tones,but the specific tone values are different.There are 22 initials in Beijing pronunciation,including zero initials.There are 24 initials in Pingliang Kongtong dialect,two more than Beijing pronunciation.There are 39 finals in Beijing pronunciation and 33 finals in Pingliang Kongtong dialect,which are six fewer than Beijing pronunciation and mainly fewer nasal finals.Comparing with the middle and ancient sounds,we can see that the following changes have taken place in the evolution of Pingliang Kongtong dialect.In terms of tone,the ancient four tones are still four types of tones,but the ancient Pingliang dialect can be divided into the present Yinping and the Yangping dialect according to the surd and the sonant,the ancient all-turbid shangsheng tone into the present voice,the ancient surd into the present Yinping and the secondary voice into the present Yinping dialect,and the ancient all-turbid into the present Yangping dialect.In terms of initials,the ancient sonant initials are now all surd.The ni letters and yi letters are all pronounced as[η]initials by the present minus.The ancient Jing group and Jianxiao group have no distinction with the present minus.In the dialect of Pingliang District,the ancient Zhi system is pronounced as[ts ts’ s]or[ts ts’ s].The Second Class Character of the Ancient jian System Reads the Initials of[k k ’ x].Modern Reading of Some Characters of Ancient ying and yi Letters are now pronounced as[n]or[η]initials,yi of the present pronunciation of[η]initials for words that are now spelled with[γ];In terms of vowels,both the Initial Characters of xian Dianyun,Zhenju Dianyun,and Gouju Shusheng are now read as[uo]Finally,by comparing the pronunciation of Pingliang dialect with that of Gao Benhan one hundred years ago,we can see that there have been some remarkable changes in Pingliang dialect in the past hundred years,mainly the simplification of the pronunciation types of Zhixi characters in the Middle Ages,the disappearance of the Ni pronunciation of Lai consonant,the change of the pronunciation types of Ri consonant,the alteration of the phonetic sounds of the part of Ying and Yi consonant,the photography of Yu and Zhen in the medieval times.Variations in the pronunciation of the entering consonants,changes in the finals of the Shusheng characters of Shen,Zhen and Zeng,Geng and Tong photographs,and changes in the prepositions of some finals when they are spelled with the[1]consonants,etc.Finally,the author thinks that the reasons for the above changes are the abrasion of the dialect’s own characteristics and the simplification of the dialect’s phonetic system under the influence of Putonghua.