An Investigation Into The Confusion Of N & L In Zhenjiang Urban Dialect

As for the confusion of n & l in Zhenjiang urban dialect, the former researches are far from enough because of the limits in theories and methodology. Based on the traditional dialect investigations, we use the theories of language variation and methods of social linguistics to make an investigation into this phenomenon. This investigation includes two parts and has acquired plenty of phonetic data. We analyze these data by phonetic, semantic, stylistic and social factors, and then compare the results with the phonetic system of Middle Ages Chinese, Mandarin Chinese and the dialects of neighboring areas.The results show that, those characters which are relative with the confusion of n & l derive from not only the characters of "nimu" and "laimu", but also some of "rimu" and "yimu"; are those whose initials are n, l, r([?]) in Mandarin Chinese. Generally speaking, the pronunciations of these characters obey the phonetic rule that: l is more likely to be combined with "kaihe vowels', n is more likely to combined with "qicuo vowels"; if kaihe vowels are nasalized, they are combined with n more often. Age and education are two social factors which influence the initials n/l most obviously. Those who are older and lower-educated are more likely to obey the phonetic rule. Those characters which appear in general vocabulary/relative none frequently-used words are more likely to be influenced by Mandarin Chinese and violate the phonetic rule. Style is not among the main factors which would influence the initials n/l.Therefore, confusion of n & l in Zhenjiang urban dialect doesn't means totally out of rule, but a phenomenon when the phonetic system of Zhenjiang dialect is compared with that of Middle Ages Chinese and Mandarin Chinese. Old-fashioned pronunciations obey the dialect phonetic rule; n & l can be seen as conditioned variants of the same phoneme. As time goes, the influence of Mandarin Chinese is becoming stronger, but it has not replaced the dialect rule yet. These two powers mingle, which makes the phonetic system of the young generation a little confused. In the long run, the phonetic features of Mandarin Chinese may replace that of Zhenjiang urban dialect.