Nanjing Dialect Tone Experimental Study

Nanjing, located in the southwest of Jiangsu Province, is the capital city of this province. Nanjing dialect, as a representative dialect in Hongchao dialectal area of Jianghuai dialect, has been studied by many researchers. With the expectation of furthering study in this field on the basis of the previous achievements, this thesis studies the tones of Nanjing dialect by means of acoustic experiments instead of the traditional speaking-listening method.This thesis is mainly composed of four chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces the syllabary of Nanjing dialect and states the research methods and procedures of the experiments. In the experiments the acoustic analysis is firstly conducted by the sound analysis software—Praat; the acoustic data are then processed by the Praat scripts and Matlab programs; and finally the five degrees on tones of Nanjing dialect are figured out through F0 normalization on the basis of LZ-score.The second chapter refers to studies on mono-syllable tone from the two perspectives of pitch and duration. In this process, the acoustic data such as F0 and duration are firstly collected; and the normalization of these data is then conducted. The mono-syllable tone pattern got in the experiments is consistent with the traditional descriptions. The duration pattern of mono-syllable tone is Yangping>Shangsheng>Qusheng>Yinping>Rusheng. There exists short and long distinctive feature between Rusheng and other tones.The third chapter studies the bi-syllable tone from pitch and duration. In this process, the acoustic data of bi-syllable tone, such as F0 and duration, are firstly collected; and the normalization of these data is conducted. As a result, the bi-syllable tone pattern concluded from the experiments is inconsistent with the traditional descriptions. Some sandhi, which the traditional studies haven't found, is discovered through the experiments. "Abrading of bend degrees" theory is afterward used to explain the sandhi in Nanjing dialect. It is found that the short and long distinctive feature existing between Rusheng and other tones in the former characters, but disappears in latter characters.The fourth chapter is mainly concerned with Rusheng of Nanjing dialect. Rusheng of Nanjing dialect is evolutive: the glottal stops in it have been attenuated to a certain extent, which have exfoliated in some syllables, especially in the latter character of bi-syllables, and are developing towards disappearance on a whole. Another discovery of this experiment is that the evolution of Rusheng is a long historical period, and the disappearance of the glottal stop and distinctive feature of duration will success through some historical period.