A Comparative Study On The Phonological System Of Zhongyuan Yinyun And Zhongzhou Yinyun

Zhongyuan Yinyun is a fine piece of scholarship on history of modern Chinese phonetics. It not only records the actual speech sounds in that time, but also innovates the traditional style of rhyme books and has a great influence to the later. Zhongzhou Yinyun of Ming dynasty is written for rhyming of the southern ballads. It is based on the phonology of Zhongyuan Yinyun and also has elements of southern phoneme, which is regarded as a masterpiece at the beginning of compiling southern rhyme books. This paper analyses the two books in order to find out their relationship and value in history of Chinese phonetics by means of historical method, statistical method and inductive method and so on.There are five chapters except for the foreword and epilogue. The foreword introduces the study situation and problems about the two books. ChapterⅠsummarizes the background, edition, style and influence of the two books. ChapterⅡcompares and summarizes some similarities and differences of their initial systems'characteristics. ChapterⅢtalks about the similarities and differences of their final systems'characteristics. ChapterⅣcompares their tone systems'characteristics. ChapterⅤdiscusses their phonological characteristics. ChapterⅥlists the table of syllable.The epilogue summarizes main conclusions and inadequacises of this paper.Founded on the predecessor's academic researches, this paper compares the phonological system of Zhongyuan Yinyun and Zhongzhou Yinyun in detail, and comes to some conclusions: In terms of initials, the latter has 30 initials, which is based on the former's 21 initials and added 9 Quanzhuo initials. In terms of finals, the former has 46 finals, which is changed to 43 finals in the latter's by raising, deleting, decomposing and combining. In terms of tones, the former has 4 tones because the Ping tone has been separated into YinPing tone and YangPing, and the latter has 3 tones. And their entering tone was assigned into 4 tones for rhyming. In generally, the former reflected the actual speech sounds in that time, which is imitated by the latter. And the latter has some elements of southern phoneme which is a promiscuous and factitious phonological system .