A Phonetic Study Of AnGuo Dialect

Located in the middle of Hebei Province, the city of Anguo has a population of 363 thousand. Affected by Standard Chinese, the Anguo dialect is losing its peculiar features fast. This thesis means salvaging the dialect material.First, this paper has made a description and an analysis of the phonetic system of the Anguo dialect. It brings to light its interior structure and features, and also attempts to discover laws governing the changing and development of Anguo dialect. The dialect has 23 initials, 41 finals and 4 tones. The relationship of the above three items is demonstrated in the diagrams.Second, with the sounds of ancient and medieval times as reference, this paper has made use of the initials, finals and tones to explain the synchronic evolution of the Anguo dialect and Its correspondence to standard Chinese.Finally this paper has made a descriptive analysis of the diachronic phonetic variations of the Anguo dialect. They are as follows: Differences in which the [er] rime and the [en as the final rime; Combination of sounds; Light tone, especially the falling tone which varies in the forms of the level tone, the rising tone and falling tone when it appear before the light tone; Link - up tone variations; List of all kinds of variant pronunciation, and analysis of the reasons for variant pronunciation.The phonetic features of the Anguo dialect are similar to the Rime of the Central Plain,in which the falling tone of ancient and medieval times falls to the rising tonewhich it remains the same in the Anguo dialect. In the dialect, some falling tone characters,whose rime category is dissimilar to that in standard Chinese, belong to the same rime categary in the Rime of the Central Plain. In the ancient Zhi(~P) Zhudng(Lt) grope words like Zé(IIID SuóC~li) pronounced in the Anguo dialect belong to the ZhOo( ~) group in the Rime of the Central Plain. In a word,the Anguo dialect has, comparatively speaking,preserved the northern dialect message of the Yuan and Ming dynasties.