Study On The Historical Development Of Rusheng In Hunan Dialect

Rusheng in Chinese refers to the checked tone and the checked rhyme. Having been evolved in the long history and in different ways, ancient Rusheng displays a diverse and complicated situation in the various dialects in modern Chinese. Even in the area speaking Hunan dialect in HUNAN provir ce, the characters who have been in ancient checked tone and rhyme are not in the same tone and rhyme now: in some sub-dialects, they remains in one tone category like before; in others, just some of them still in an independent tone category; in others, some have merged into other tone category. In the case of the ones in an independent tone category, there are no distinction between the tone of yin and yang, and they have on stop ending. In the case of merging ones, they have various changes.Based on the materials we collect, the study in the thesis suggests that the changeover and development of Rusheng in Hunan dialect begins in the late Tang Dynasty, and the stop-ending rhyme -p, -t of Rusheng ,whose pronunciation occur at the front part in oral cavity changed into the stop-ending rhyme -k whose pronunciation occurs at the back part. The disappearance of the stop-ending rhymes happened between Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty. After the checked tone changed long, some of them still in an independent tone category, some jointed with the long tone. Till present, the evolution of Rusheng in Hunan dialect is still in the progress.