Research On The Tone System Of Dialects In The Middle And South Of Hebei Province

Based on field investigation, this paper studies monosyllabic tone, sandhi and neutral toneby using data statistics, comparison method, experimental phonetics and dialectal maps, tothoroughly describe and probe features of the tone system of dialects in the middle and southof Hebei Province.Except for introduction, the paper is divided into five chapters.Introduction. This chapter first demarcates the scope of middle and south of HebeiProvince and introduces the general situation of the dialects in that area; then provides withgeography, historical and cultural information of that region briefly; summarizes the studystatus on this subject further more; explains the research methods and sources of materialsabout this paper at last.From chapter one to chapter four, it presents descriptions of the synchronic aspects ofmonosyllabic tone, sandhi and neutral tone in the middle and south of Hebei Province, whilegiving further explorations to some phonetic phenomena and rules on sandhi and neutral tone.Chapter one depicts monosyllabic tone in the middle and south of Hebei Province fromtwo facets, which include tone category and tone pitch。Chapter two and chapter three not only portray but also discuss the sandhi in the middleand south of Hebei Province.Chapter two firstly analyses dialects in the middle and south of Hebei Province from sixaspects, including number of tone sandhi groups, place of tonal modification, the appearanceof new tone pitch, tone category restoration, the interflow of the tone categories and the samecombination with muti-mode; then carries on the statistics on the combination of tone shape.Chapter three gives descriptions and analysis on sandhi in the middle and south of HebeiProvince from tone category and tone pitch. This chapter, to begin with, analyses the effect oftone shape in sandhi using statistic methods; analyses characteristics of tone shapecombination in the middle and south of Hebei Province in terms of “falling tone+level tone”,falling-rising tone, dissimilation of the same intonation; describes synchronic aspects ofsandhi system in the way of geographic distribution; analysis the influence on sandhi by tone category, which mainly discussed the two formation mechanism of “Shangsheng+Shangsheng”,“Qusheng+Qusheng” more over; finally describes tone type reappearance andthe interflow of the tone categories in sandhi.Features of sandhi in dialects in the middle and south of Hebei Province are presented asbelow. The rate of modified tone increase progressively from southeast to northwest district;Modified tone appears mostly in the previous character; Distinctive features exist in thegeographic distribution of new tone pitch; The interflow of the tone categories spreads mainlyin the three-tones dialect in Cangzhou piece of Jilu Madarain and dialect in Luyuan piece ofJin dialect; Interflow of the tone categories is ubiquitous. The “second tone+Shangsheng=Shangsheng+Shansheng” is the feature in the south of Shiheng piece;“Firsttone+Qusheng=Qusheng+Shangsheng” is the character of the south and east of Shiheng piece;“First tone+Shangsheng=Qusheng+Shangsheng” pattern belongs to the middle of Shihengpiece. Whereas the phenomenon of same combination with muti-mode exists in“Qusheng+Qusheng” pattern in middle and south of Shiheng piece in abundance. As forcombination of tone type,“falling tone+level tone” is a typical combination in the dialects ofthe middle and south of Hebei Province; Meanwhile whether in the position of previous orrear character，modified tone accounts a large proportion in falling-rising tone; And whensimilar tone types are linked, tone sandhi is more likely to happen.Chapter four is the description and discussion on soft tone in the middle and south ofHebei Province. It first gives analysis and subsequent summary on characteristics of dialectsin the middle and south of Hebei Province in seven aspects, which include. Quantity of tonetype in monosyllabic tone, number of tone sandhi in previous character, number of tonesandhi groups with features of lightness and shortness, the appearance of new tone pitch in theprevious character, tone category restoration, the interflow of the tone categories and thesame combination with multi-mode. This chapter describes tone pitch, tone type anddistribution of its preceding tone, tone category restoration of bi-syllable neutral tone, and theacoustic category of neutral tone. More over, there are analysis on neutral category in neutraltone in the middle and south of Hebei Province. In the end, the chapter discusses therealization of value call(pitch) of neutral tone in the way of light, short neutral tone andnon-light, non-short neutral tone. Following are the main characteristics of the neutral tone group in the dialects of middlesouthern area in Hebei province：neutral tone syllables appears in the rear part of a disyllable;tonal modification will mostly happen in the previous syllable of the two-word group withneutral tone; according to the phonics characteristics,neutral tone can be divided into neutraltone with the features of lightness and shortness which mostly appears in the Jin dialect aswell as the regions around, and neutral tone with the features of non-lightness andnon-shortness which mostly appears in the Mandarin, the new value call of utterancetransformation in the previous part of neutral tone largely exists in the dialects of middlesouthern area in Hebei province, this situation occurs much more frequently in Mandarin thanin Jin dialect; tonal reversion situation mainly distributes in the such Cangzhou piece andBaoba piece of Jilu mandarin and Luyuan piece of Jin mandarin; neutralization of the neutraltone has various types, neutral tone positioning neutralization, distinguishable previous tone,neutral tone group with fixed mode and autonomous neutral tone, such four types; the pitchof light short neutral tone is decided by the value call of the stress syllable of the previouscharacter, the pitch (value call)of non-light, non-short neutral tone is not completely decidedby the previous character, instead, it forms a fixed group mode with the previous character.The fifth chapter analyzes the tone evolution of modern Hebei dialects, based on the existingdocuments, meanwhile, discusses the tone variation of dialects transition area with theexample Tang dialect.