West Sichuan Dialect Vocabulary Study

"Western Mandarin of the Spoken Language of west China" wrote by Mr. Adam Grainger from "China Inland Mission" published by American Presbyterian Mission in 1900.It is a book of casually used oral language for the missionary to spread the religion.The main object of this thesis is to discuss the third part (characters) of "Western Mandarin of the Spoken Language of west China". In view of the words from "Western Mandarin of the Spoken Language of west China" are both dialect and commonly used language,we conclude that the "dialect" from the title should belong to broad sense which is wildly used in Chengdu. It contains those with the same spelling but different in pronunciation. The dialect of narrow sense refers to changing form of national language. Dialect in this thesis is from the broad sense except the section 2.2.1.The system of vacabulary is an open one that is changing as time goes by. Comparing with the tone, grammar, vacabulary could specially show a certain culture of language in society. So analysis the vocabulary of "Western Mandarin of the Spoken Language of west China" can make us know the vacabulary in 19th century. It makes us understand the culture of Shu in the same period and also the development and changes of the Spoken Language of west China. Chengdu is the capital of Western Shu and the center of politics, economy and culture.Chengdu dialect belongs to the official language of south-west in north dialect area. It has tremendous influence in southwest area. So it is meaningful to take the Chengdu dialect as the subject of analysis. It could make us know Chengdu better, research the history of Chinese and promote the Mandarin.We begin from transverse and fore-and-aft, research and compare theChengdu' s vocabulary during 100 years, raise some views on reason of changes on vocabulary system.From transverse view, it concludes 3786 words in third part (characters) of " Western Mandarin of the Spoken Language of west China" according to the meaning and grammar structure and discuss the character of Chengdu dialect based on meaning, category and structure, making a brief analysis on the reason for the existence of some characters.From fore-and-aft view, it compares the Chengdu dialect at the end of 19th century with the present one. It explains the development of Chengdu dialect during 10 decades and discusses the reason for degradation of some old words from the role a signal word, the grammar structure, meaning and morphology...