Jiaxian Dialect Speech Research

Jia County is located in the northern part of Shaanxi province, which is within the administration of Yulin City. With its distinguished character, the dialect of Jia County is the typical representative of Northern Shaanxi language. Based upon thorough field work, this paper offers a comprehensive description of the dialect on phonetic system and its character through synchronic portray, horizontal and historical comparison. Besides, it further explores the evolutionary process of guo she yi deng zi and internal diversity in Jia County's dialect.Basically, the paper can be subdivided into five parts. Part one is the introduction, which briefly depicts the geographical, historical and cultural outline of Jia County, roughly sketches out the situation of researches on the dialects both within and around Jia County, and expounds the significance of the researching the dialect. Finally, the dialect of Jia County is regionally split into three mini zones:the northern, the southern and the urban. It is highlighted that the northern is the focus of this paper. In part two, the phonetic system is dealt with, which discusses the vocality, rhythem and tune of the dialect in detail. The analysis of the principles of the phonetics change is constructed upon the previous division, and the major concern is to illustrate the tone sandhi and light tone AB dissyllabic pattern in Jia dialect, on the basis of which the author deems that the tone sandhi and the light tone are closely related. Part three studies the homophones of the dialect. Part four makes a comparison between dialect pronunciations and mid-ancient Chinese by comparing the dialectical system of Jia County and the phonetic system in Guang Yun, looking out the congruent relationship and exploring the principle of the evolutionary process of Jia County's dialect. Besides, it explores the evolutionary process of guo she yi deng zi in Jia County's dialect. In the last part,it explores the internal diversity of Jia County's dialect.