A Study Of Historical Strata In Hakka And Gan Dialects

This dissertation is a tntative contribution to the historical strata of the Hakka and Gan dialects of the Chinese language by using an approach of historical stratum analysis. The approach of historical stratum analysis as a new point of view of dialectal history and a new method of dialectal study regards the modern Chinese language in southeast China as a result of the parallel development of both differentiation and conformity,not of simple differentiation. As the south dialects of the Chines language have been subject to the horizontal influences from the north dialect for a long time,in its synchronic system have been formed a number of "heterogeneous" historical strata.Sojt is absolute in the study of the history of the south dialects that the historicl comparative method can not be used in a simple way, instead the historical stratum analysis should be made firstthen only within the same stratum can the historical comparison be made.In order to make a large-scale historical stratum analysis of the Hakka and Gan dialects,the author of this dissertation .directed by the supervisor ,has built a database on the data from more than 1.10 dialectal points,using the data base techniques. All the analyses of this dissertation are based on the comprehensive and exhaustive comparison of the dialectal data .The significance of this paper is shown in the following ways: As a comprehensive study of the historical stratifications of the two Chinese main dialects by using a new theory-the historical stratum approach,this dissertation has a positive significance in improving that theory. The large-scale data based techniques used in this dissertation represents one of the directions of further development in the study of the Chineselanguage. The experiences of large-scale statistical analysis of data accumulated in the study will certainly have positive influences on the further investigations.The study of the historical stratifications of the Hakka and Gan dialects has just sprung up. The full and accurate analyses made in this dissertation have deepened to some extent the study of many important problems in the dialects.One of distinctive features of this dissertation is its combining the large-scale synchronic comparative analysis of the dialectal data with the reference to and verification with full and accurate diachronic phonological data.The practice of this paper has certain significances in the methodology of the study of dialectal history.The dissertation consists of the following parts: The introduction gives a brief presentation of the study background and the new ideas of the investigation means and their significances. Besides, the data and references used for the study have been listed. In the first chapter, some theoretical problems in the historical stratum analysis are briefly stated. In the second chapter, the pattern of the dental-apical sounds separately ranked and its significances are analyzed: In the third chapter, the historical evolution of the character groups "精装" is analyzed; From the forth to the eleventh chapters, the historical stratum analyses of the group "端", the initial consonant "日",the group "见", the rhyme class ,the rhymes "效" "蟹" and "止" are made,respectively; In the twelfth chapter, the historical evolution of the rising tone in the Hakka and Gan dialects is analyzed. In the thirteenth chapter, the relationship-words of the Kam Tai languages in the Hakka and Gan dialects are discussed. In the end,there are some conclusions.