Dunhuang Poems Rhyme Study

The thesis takes 1852 Dunhuang Poetry敦煌诗歌collected from the Dunhuang literature as the object of our study.Through analyzing and associating 2405 Yun-duan韵段of these poems,we concluded the rime categories system of Dunhuang Poetry and compared them with that of Guangyun广韵.This thesis attempted to reveal the dialects phenomena that the rhyming of Dunhuang Poetry reflected and the status of it in the standard language.This thesis contains seventy thousand characters.Through summarizing and tidying the rhyming of DunhuangPoetry,the conclusions are as follows:1.There were 802 modern style poems in Dunhuang Poetry.They could be divided into 20 rime categories:10 YinSheng Rimes阴声韵,10 YangSheng Rimes阳声韵.The exceptional rhyming characters,Chu-yun出韵and Jie-run借韵phenomena were also discussed.2.There were 1050 classical poems in Dunhuang Poetry and they could be divided into 26 rime categories:9YinSheng Rimes阴声韵,9YangSheng Rimes阳声韵,9 Entering Rimes入声韵.We divided the exceptional rhyming phenomena into Antique,Provisional co-rhyme,Actual sound three types and respectively discussed them.The main focus was to analyze their causes and the phonetic characteristics that they reflected.3.Through analysis and induction,we studied the rhyming phenomena among different tones in the rhyming of Dunhuang Poetry to find the conjecture on the tone characteristics.And the relationship among classical tones are further studied.It focused on discussing the rising and departing tones to prove that the voiced rising tones had changed into the departing tones in Tang and Five Dynasties.According to the place of articulations and manner of articulations of intials,we concluded that the voiced rising tones had changed into the departing tones probably started from apical sibilant characters and fricative characters.4.For the misused characters and variant writings of some manuscripts,we had cited examples to analyze and sum up the characteristics of initials,finals and tones which existed in the phonology of west-north in Tang Dynasty.The results showed that there were significant differences in phonetic system between the phonology of west-north in Tang Dynasty and Qieyun切韵.For example:voiceless sound and bilabial of initials had divided,sonant inintials had disappeared,there's no difference between Yun云and Yi以,there's no difference between Ying影and Yi疑,Fine sound in Group Jing精and Group Jian见started to palatalized,and so on;Finals system greatly simplified,YangSheng Rime endings-m,-n,-ηbegan to merge,Entering Rime endings started to weaken.The even stones hadn't been divided into Yin and Yang,the voiced rising tones had changed into the departing tones,Even is similar to the departing tones.5.By comparing and contrasting the rhyming system in Dunhuang Poetry with the dialects of other regions during the Tang and Five Dynasties,we could find the characteristics of the phonology in west-north and the characteristics of the standard language.