The Baoying Dialect Vocabulary Study

The history of Chinese dialects study is more than two thousand years from Yang Xiong of Han Dynasty, but no dialects surveys or researches were conducted based on modern linguistic theories or via modern linguistic techniques and methods until the 1920s.Up to the late 1940s, the works on Chinese dialects just focus on sounds recording and examination, attaching less importance to the survey of vocabulary and grammar. Recently, although the neglect and despisement of the study of dialects vocabulary have been greatly rectified, the study is far from sufficient in depth and width. Besides, the research of dialects spots remains to be a weak link in dialect study. Under these circumstance, this thesis attempts to study Baoying dialect of Hongchao section, Jiang-Huai area.The body of this thesis describes Baoying dialect itself, compares it with Mandarin Chinese and analyses its etymology, intending to reveal the characteristics of Baoying dialect and the culture contained in the Baoying vocabulary, and therefore lay the foundation for in-depth research of Hongchao dialect and even the whole Jiang-Huai dialect and in addition, add credible corpus and theoretical reference to the vocabulary study of Chinese dialects.The thesis consists of three body chapters, an introduction, a conclusion, and two appendices as well.The introduction talks about the geographical outline and the history of Baoying, the sounds features of Baoying dialect and the research background of this thesis.The first chapter generally states the form-building, word-building and the grammar of Baoying dialect, describes the vocabulary of Baoying dialect from these angles, and generalizes the characteristics of it.The second chapter starts with the morphology and word meaning of Baoying dialect and compares these with Mandarin Chinese in the hope of describing their similarities and differences.The third chapter focuses on the etymology of the vocabulary of Baoying dialect. The study involves the three aspects of archaisms, loanwords and native words, the section of native words uncovering the customs and traditions of Baoying from one side.The conclusion sums up the whole thesis and makes an overall statement about the characteristics of the vocabulary of Baoying dialect.The two appendices after the body are:(1)Baoying dialect characteristic words; and (2) Baoying dialect idioms.