The Historical Strata And Evolution Of Min Dialects

Recently, the linguists pay more and more attention to the historical strata of Chinese, and the historical strata analysis is the focus of Chinese dialects now. The phonological components of Min dialects are very old and complex. They are the best samples for the historical strata analysis. Undoubtedly, it must be a meaningful study to analyze the strata of Min dialects. But, as we know, so far there is no special works have been done in this field. So, the author tries his best to mend such neglect.In fact, there is still no agreement on the definition of historical strata analysis and their methods to comparison. Thus, the author has to summarize the historical strata analysis theoretically at first. The author illustrates its background, definition, styles, and methods. Some examples are discussed to show how to analyze the different strata and how to identify their age and origin. Furthermore, the author points out the shortcomings in current theory.With this new method, the author analyzes Min dialects rime group by rime group. He always begins with analyzing the stratum of the Puxian dialect, and arranges their sequence. Then, he tries to find out the same stratum in the other Min dialects by the common relative characters, which can show the strong relation between two dialects. At the end of each section, a diagram is used to show the phonetic correspondence in Min dialects in detail. As to finding cognate and reconstructing the proto-min dialect, the author believes that his diagrams are more reliable than other's.At the same time, the author tries his best to identify their age and origin of those strata, and sets forth their inner evolution. By comparison, the author notices some historical changes neglected by other scholars. For example, in the Quanzhou dialect, the final ia and a of ZHI(支)-rime are in complementary distribution, and the final ia changes to a after the medial i loses. In the Puxian dialect, The final ui of open SHAN(山)-group is transplanted from the Quanzhou dialect. It doesn't exist in the Puxian dialect in the earlier stage. In the Puxian dialect, there must be a chain shift in the final ofdivision I, II of the open XIAN(咸)-group.The present studies also include some interesting research by applying historical strata analysis. The author analyzes the special phonetic structure of WU(五) in the Puxian dialect to show its complicated relation with the Minnan dialect, Fuzhou dialect. Wu dialects, and Mandarin. The author points out that the Cuokouhu(撮口呼) in the colloquial strata of the Puxian dialect inherit from proto-min dialect rather than...