A Study Of "Changsha Dialect" In Anren Township, Dazhou City, Sichuan Province

Anren, located at the southwest of Dachuan district in Dazhou, Sichuan province, has come to the dialect island of “Changsha dialect” since the immigrant movement of the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty brought it here. The previous study for “Changsha dialect” of Anren is confined to its history and distribution. There are rare arguments about its origin from the respects of phonetic features of “Changsha dialect”. The existing study rarely compare “Changsha dialect” of Anren with Xiang dialect in area of origin and Xiang dialect in ingoing place separately, which can not reveal the situation people contact and the features of “Anren dialect”. Therefore, this paper describe its phonetic system on the basis of field investigation,comparing it with ancient Chinese phonology in diachronic perspective, and “Changsha dialect” of Changyi sub-dialect, Lianyuan dialect of Loushao sub-dalect, the southwest mandarin- Dazhou dialect in diachronic perspective. Besides, this paper also summarizes the phonetic features and the evolution trend from the respect of dialect people contact.This paper is divided into six parts:The introduction part presents the situations of Anren,including the geographical location, historical development, and situation of language use, present research situation of dialect contact and the phonological study of Xiang dialect of Sichuan. It also instructs the research contents, methods and research significance.From the first chapter to fifth chapter is the main body. The first chapter describes the phonological tone of“Changsha dialect” of Anren. There are 21 initial consonants, 41 vowels and 6 tones in “Changsha dialect”. Comparing with the former’s research, there are different degree changes in consonant and vowel,especially tone. The second chapter analyzes the tone characteristics of “Changsha dialect”of Anren from the respects of literal and colloquial pronunciation. The phenomenon of literal and colloquial pronunciation in consonant and tone is rare but relatively much in vowel. Initial devoicing do not take traditional Xiang dialect as the standard any more while the ancient voiced initials are all aspirate sound. The third chapter compares pronunciation diachronically by a diachronic comparison between “Changsha dialect” of Anren and ancient Chinese phonology in Guang Yun. Analyzing historical evolution characteristics of phonology in “Changsha dialect” of Anren, from the comparative result in consonant, vowel and tone, in which includes merge-joint of ancient and present pronunciation, the origin of present tones and differentiation of archaic Chinese tonymes. The forth chapter compares pronunciation synchronically by making a synchronic comparison between “Changsha dialect” of Anren and “Changhsha dialect” of Changyi sub-dialect, Lianyuan dialect of Loushao sub-dialect, the southwest mandarin- Dazhou dialect. We think it owns features of Xiang dialect and Dazhou dialect, which further proves that the “Changsha dialect”of Anren deeply contact with the Dazhou dialect with a tendency of drawing close to dazhou dialect. The fifth chapter analyzes the change of “Changhsha dialect” of Anren from the point of dialect contact, including three aspects: reservation, disappearing and evolution.The sixth chapter summarizes tone features of “Changsha dialect” of Anren and tries to explain the problem of the affiliation and the development trend. In addition, the last chapter also points out the deficiency of this research.