The Study Of The Pronunciation Guides Of Zhengzitong

Based on the 3810 characters provided by the Chinese Dialect Survey character List, this study makes use of"Series connection methods"(系联法) to analyze the character spelling (Fanqie,反切) and character homonym (直音) given by the Pronunciation guide (音注) in Zhengzitong (《正字通》), in order to get a clear picture of the onsets, rimes and tones of the pronunciations of the author's speech. As the author was brought up in Yinchun, Jiangxi, the results are compared with the present Yichun dialect to compare the diachronic changes. On this basis, the reconstruction of the Pronunciation guides of Zhengzitong can be achieved.The first chapter is Introduction, which gives a brief account of the author and the compilation history of the dictionary Zhengzitong. This chapter also summarizes the previous works on the Pronunciation guides of Zhengzitong, which shows characteristics of the Yichun dialect of Jiangxi.Chapter 2 analyses the Phonology of the Pronunciation guides of Zhengzitong.The analysis of the onsets and rimes was carried out by the"series connection method"by stringing the first and the second characters rtespectively of the character spelling listed in the Pronunciation guide. On the classification of the onsets, this study combined the Middle Chinese onsets Jing (精) and Zhuang (庄) into one group, which agrees with the historical and present conditions of the Yichun dialect. There are some important amendments to previous works: the Middle Chinese Onset Ni (泥) is reconstructed as dental nasal, Zhi-Zhang (知章) group as postalveolar, etc. As this study employs a novel method that is independent of previous works, the classification and reconstruction are innovative. Based on the analysis of the onsets and rimes, it is also concluded that there are five tones in the Pronunciation guide.Chapter 3 collates the Phonology of the Pronunciation guides of Zhengzitong after a careful analysis and reconstruction.Chapter 4 compares the Phonology of the pronunciation Guide in Zhengzitong and the Phonology of the Yichun dialect in Jiangxi. Through the comparison of the Phonology of Zhengzitong and today's Yichun dialect, it is found that in the past four centuries, the Yichun dialect underwent a series of changes common to other Chinese dialects such as devoicing, palatalization and loss of onsets, etc.Through the present study, it is revealed that the Pronunciation guides of Zhengzitong basically reflect the traits of 17th Century Gan dialects. This study thus provides a concrete material for the observation of the Gan dialect of the 17th Century, and is important for understanding the patterns of diachronic development of the Gan dialect or even Chinese as a whole.