The Hexi Baojuan Phonological Research

Hexi Baojuan河西寶卷is taken as the object of our study in this paper. Through analysis verses and misused characters which were in 51 different sorts Baojuan寶卷collected, we generalized phonology characteristics of Northwestern dialects in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and explored the development and evolution of the Northwestern dialects based on our researches.Through analysis the Hexi Baojuan, we obtained some conclusions as follows:1. There were a lot of verses and misused characters in Hexi Baojuan, these data was colloquial and had local color,it reflected the features of the Northwestern dialects in Ming and Qing Dynasties well.2. Hexi Baojuan rhymed more freely than Guangyun《廣韻》.The rime categories had reduced greatly,and the familiarly sounded rimes had been converged gradually.3. Initials of the Northwestern dialects in Ming and Qing Dynasties had been voicelesss,the voiced plosive and affricated and fricative had been devoiced, and the even tone characters were aspirated and the others were unaspirated.Voiceless sound and bilabial of initials had divided, and Initial Fei非母,Initial Fu敷母,Initial Feng奉母of Middle Chiese had merged, and Initial Wei [v] still retained.The Jing group精组and Jian group見组of Middle Chiese were not divided, and the fine sounds were obviously palatalized.The third-class and fourth class characters of Middle Chiese were not divided, Initial Yu喻母,Initial Ying影母,Initial Yi疑母and Initial Yu喻母were not divided, Initial Ni泥母and Initial Lai来母were not divided, Zhi group知组and Zhao group照组were not divided.4. The Northwestern dialects in Ming and Qing Dynasties could be divided into 10 categories:7 YinSheng Rimes陰聱韻(Rime Ge Ge歌戈部,Rime Jia Ma家麻部,Rime Yu Mo魚模部,Rime Jie Hai皆哈部,Rime Zhi Wei支微部,Rime Xiao Hao宵豪部,Rime You Hou尤侯部),3 Yang Sheng Rimes陽聱韻(Rime Jiang Yang江陽部,Rime Yuan Tan元覃部,Rime Dong Qin东侵部)。The third-class characters of Ma Rime麻such as Ye爺,Die爹,Ye夜,Xie些,Ye野,Xie斜,Xie射,She捨had completely evolved into [e], [ie].The main vowel of Yang Sheng Rimes of Middle Chiese had nasalized, Yang Sheng Rimes ending [-m] had disappeared and merged into [-n], Yang Sheng Rimes endings [-n] and [-η] had merged (or disappeared).The three plosive engings [-p]. [-t],[-k] of enterning Rimes had completely disappeared, enterning Rimes had disappeared, and had basically merged into corresponding YinSheng Rimes.5. The level tone had divided into Yin陰and Yang陽, and were similar to the falling tone, the voiced rising tone had evolved into falling tone.The entering tonehad merge into four tones。In short, the Northwestern dialects in Ming and Qing Dynasties which were reflected by Hexi Baojuan on one hand inherited some features from the Northwestern dialects in Tang and Five Dynasties,on the other hand appeared some new features.The phonology characteristics were similar to the phonology characteristics of the modern Northwestern dialects.