Jiangyan Tonal Experiments

The Jiangyan City(original Tai County) lies in the central part of Jiangsu province, It belongs to Taizhou city. Jiangyan dialect is one of the dialects of Tairu (Tongtai) part of Jianghuai dialects. Up to now, there are not so much information about Jiangyan dialect, and the phonetists got the primary production using the traditional methods such as hearing and noting, never trying to use the modern phonetics method. In this article we will make a try in Jiangyan tone.The thesis is divided into three chapters:Charpter one summarizes the present experimental research of Chinese tone and phonetic system and analyze the six present FO normalisations. Finally, the author select the method of LZ as that of FO normalisation.Chapter two studies the FO and length of monotonous syllable in Jiangyan dialect. The author transforms Lz values to five levels and then compares them with the conclusions of traditional dialectology. It is found that the experimental conclusion on pitch values of mono-syllable tone is consistent with the traditional points. The relationships between each mono-syllable tone are: Shangsheng> Qusheng> Yangping> Yinping in neutral tones, Yinru>Yangru in entering tones and the neutral tones are not always short than entering tones.Chapter three analyzes the modified tone regular pattern and length about the bi-syllable Jiangyan dialect. After transforming from bi-syllable tone FO to five level, the author compares them with traditional dialectology. It is discovered that there exist some differences between the bi-syllable modified tone experimental conclusion of Jiangyan dialect and traditional conclusion. The author sums up the nes modified tone regular patterns of Jiangyan dialect according to the experimental conclusions and analyzes them with Liu Lili's twist theory. The twist values of 18 kinds of bi-syllable units need to be decreased such as "Yinping+x", "Shangsheng+x", "Yangping+Yangping/Yangru",. "Qusheng/Yinru+Shangsheng" and so on. The other 18 kinds of bi-syllable units have no change. Among the decreased twist tone units, it may be decreased by one or three values in the front of liaison and may be decreased by zero or one value after liaison. In the most cases, the decreases of one or two values are common and three values are rarely seen. This decrease could be realized through curve arch to angle arch, curve arch to straight arch and level arch to ease linking arch,of which the later two are main ways. The decrease of this modified tone are produced in the process of liaison and the saving energy of prounciation organs also leads to the decrease of modified twist values. The principles of bi-syllable tone length: the front neutral tone is longer than entering tone and the latter one Yingping is the shortest one; the length of the modified tone is the shortest while Yinping lies in the latter position; the length between tones is apparently longer in entering tones, which guarantees the length differences between each modified tone are not so obvious.