A Study On Phonetic Variation Of The Mandarin Dialect Island In Lishui District, Jiangsu Province

Dialect island,as an important window,can reflect phonetic variation very well.The distribution of dialects in the Lishui District Jiangsu contains two major dialects which are Jianghuai Mandarin and Wu dialect,and there are a series of dialect islands formed by immigration of He Nan(thereafter we call Lishui dialect islands)in this area.The previous research in Lishui mainly focused on the two major local dialects,and less involved in immigration dialects.On the basis of previous studies,this thesis make a thorough field investigation in Lishui dialect islands.It makes a reasonable explanation for the causes of the phonetic evolution and variation.This thesis is divided into seven chapters.Chapter 1,Introduction.We introduce the definition of Dialect Island,the geographical scope,historical evolution,and we summarize the research results.Also,we put forward the deficiencies of previous research and established the main focus of this research.Chapter 2,the theories and methods.This chapter enumerates the linguistic theories and research methods on which the full thesis will be based,at the same time,we supplement by relevant examples in our field works.Chapter 3 is about the general characteristics of the Lishui dialect islands,which involves in the ancient consonants,vowels,and tones,and we fully describe the overall phonological features of the Lishui dialect islands.From Chapter 4 to Chapter 6,we mainly discuss topics related to the phonological features.Chapter 4 is divided into six parts:the patterns and rules of merger and separation in Xiao?group as well as Fei?group(consonants contain Fei?&Fu?&Feng?),moreover,[?]is an important condition to convert to each other.The relationships between Consonants Ni?and Lai?are based on Hong?&Xi?.There are two variation patterns in Jing?group and Zhi?&Zhuang?&Zhang?group which shows the merger pattern and the disjunction pattern,and the causes of the latter due to the rounded apical vowels.The patterns of Ri?are divided into the Fricative pattern and the Approximant pattern,the difference in the value of the sound(such as[y/?/?])is related to the the rounded apical vowels(???????).Furthermore,we summarize the reasons of rotics of Ying?Yun?&Yi?.The variation of the opening words of Ying?&Yi?reveals the influence of the opening initials.Chapter 5,the study research of vowel variations.This chapter is divided into four parts: The first part discusses on Xie ?&Zhi ?&Shan ? Zhen ?.The discussion points out that the influencing factor of the disappearance of [-u] is related to the restriction of different consonants.The second part on Jiang ?&Yang ? rhyme has a common issue with the third part.The common and interesting phonetic phenomenon in the two sections is the variations caused by the rounded apical vowels,which undoubtedly benefits from the place of origin in southern Henan,also benefits from East Hubei.The next part,we do the research on De ?&Mo ?&Mai ?,which shows the dominant vowel of these rhymes is mostly [e].Chapter 6 is the key chapter of the full-thesis research.It has made active attempts and in-depth analysis of the issue of whether there exist the Entering tones in Zhongyuan Mandarin.We find out a conclusion through acoustic observation and statistical analysis that the entering tones have not finished in merger but turned out to be in near-merger,which is a case reflecting the theory Near-merger.Furthermore,the main reason for “near-merger” of the current analysis is the profound influence from source immigrant dialects of Guangshan and Luoshan.In Chapter 7,we make a conclusion: Review of facts and methods.We summarize the total thesis,and point out the insufficiency of the research and puts forward the future research.