Guangxi The Pingnan (official Into) Then Voice

Southeast Guangxi is the first place where the Cantonese arrived in their westward expansion. Dialect research in this area has important ramifications to the research of Zhuang-Chinese contact and dialect evolution. Based on fieldworks, this thesis presents a detailed description and analysis of the phonological system of Pingnan (Guancheng) dialect, a Yue dialect spoken in Southeast Guangxi, and compares it with the Yue dialect of Guangzhou and with Guangyun to find out the phonological features and patterns of sound change.The thesis focuses on Guancheng dialect as part of a larger southeast Guangxi dialect zone, and proposes to explain the reasons and the processes of sound changes. The research aims to enhance our understanding of the phonological system of Guancheng dialect, but also provides an overview of multi-language contact situations in Southeastern Guangxi, with an aim to present useful data for a wider comparative study of languages in this region.The thesis comprises an introduction, eight chapters and two appendices. The introductory chapter introduces the object of study, the significance of the topic and research ideas and methods, before reviewing the literature. Chapter1describes the phonological system of Guancheng dialect, using standard methods of linguistics, including consonants, vowels and tones. Methods of experimental phonetics are used to describe the tones.Chapter2compares the sound system of Guancheng with that of Guangzhou Cantonese. Guancheng dialect is found to retain a number of phonological features of Cantonese while having developed some features of its own.Chapter3examines the phonological system of Guancheng in comparison with that of Guangyun, the representative of Middle Chinese, with an a diachronic account of the sound changes that have occurred in Guancheng.Old Chinese voiced rusheng split and how it is realized in Guancheng is the subject of Chapter4. Comparing these lexical iterms with those of the surrounding language, the author discovers that this feature was not necessarily caused by language contact. By analyzing the phonation types of rusheng, the author found that words in Division I of rusheng are slightly voiced and are thus easy to develop into aspirated sounds. Division II of rusheng, on the other hand, tends to evolve into voiced sounds.Chapter5discusses four types of diminutives in Guancheng, which may have implications for our study of co-articulation of consonants and vowels. Chapter6focuses on the spread of1sound in the jing group. By comparing it with the surrounding Yue dialects and Zhuang, it suggests that1may have been the result of contact from Kam-Tai. Today,1may have come from the nearby Hakka dialect. This chapter also discusses the source of the [u] in Open Division III of the jing group.Chapter7examines sandhi within two types of compound words in Guancheng, and summarizes their sandhi features. The causes of sandhi are attributed to the rhythm of the language.Chapter8sums up research findings and proposes some directions for future research.