Studies On Dialects Of Southwestern Mandarin In Sichuan Province-their Phonological Systems And Historical Development

Southwestern Mandarin, spoken by 2.5 billion people in nine provinces, is one of the most major dialects in China. Sichuan is located in the southwest of China, with 4 dialects---Mandarin, Hakka, Xiang and Min, among which the Southwestern Mandarin is most widely distributed. The southwestern Mandarin in Sichuan province originated from Huguang Mandarin brought by "Hubei and Hunan to Sichuan" immigrants during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. But the Sichuan region was long isolated, which made the local "old Sichuan dialect" not completely replaced. Some characteristics are retained as the bottom layer. And this kind of research is almost a blank.This paper first describes phonetic features of the Southwestern Mandarin in Sichuan province including initials, rhymes and tones; then compares the phonetic features of dialects in different towns and discusses the evolutional laws as well as historical strata of phonology with the method of experimental phonetics. At last it Combines the history of immigration in Sichuan and other information to further discuss the partition of Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin and concludes the unique features different from other Southwestern Mandarin.This article is divided into six chapters.Chapter One is an overall introduction. First, a brief introduction is given to the history of language development in Sichuan region for thousands of years, followed by a discussion of the object of the studies, research methods, and the sources of material.Chapter Two discusses the evolution of the initials, focusing on the distribution and evolution of the initials of ZhiZhuangZhang(???),NiLai(??),FeiXiao (??)and Duan(?)in Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin. With three experiments to analyze the phonetic characteristics of the retroflex sounds in Sichuan dialect, we certify the retroflex sounds in Sichuan dialect are much more curly than those in Mandarin. NiLai??)has a complex distribution, varying from words to words, which can draw a conclusion that the relationship between word frequency and sound change is not a simple one-way link, but keeps on changing in the course. Meanwhile, when two changes happen to the same lexical items simultaneously, the first change in the specific vocabulary may be different, leading to differences in cognitive and memory strength which become a key to successful sound change. Based on the principles of the sound change of NiLai(??)and FeiXiao(??)from the new perspective of perception phonetics, the sound change of x>f is most popular before u as u has the feature'grave'and the lip tighten can amplify the sound from the source which leads to misperception. The stops of Duan(?)change into affricates before high vowels as the aspirated stage is longer before high vowels than low vowels.Chapter Three and Four are devoted to the phonetic evolution of finals. Chapter Three briefly discusses the source of the pronunciation of rhyme Guo(?)and Liu(?)and the evolution law of rhyme nasal in Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin.Chapter Four analyzes the rhyme Ru(???)which is the focus of this article. First we discuss the evolution into the Finals of the overall trend, especially analyzing "variant sounds of Yin and Ru rhymes'(????)and " the mergers of Yang and Ru rhymes " (????)Then specific finals are taken into discussion. By means of experimental phonetics, we confirm that the vowels from the sound of Ru (???)without stop finals are shorter than that from the sound of Yin (???)which leads to different directions of sound change. We explain why the rhymes XianShan(??)after the initial JingJian(??)are either ye or yo and the rhymes in ZengGeng(??)are low vowels. At last we probe into the Ru rhymes development in DangJiang(??)group and Tong(?)group respectively.Chapter Five gives an introduction to tones in Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin, especially the independence and merger into other tones of rhyme Ru, indicating that the merger is the result of language contact and competition.Chapter Six is the conclusion of the article. According to the discussion before, we try to sum up the unique features of Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin, inferring that immigration was a gradual process, as a result there once existed indigenous and immigrant language competition in the zone along the Min River. Although the ultimate victory is "HuGuang Mandarin", the "old Sichuan dialect" is still retained as the bottom layer. Finally, Sichuan Southwestern Mandarin is divided into five districts and points out the specific features in each district.