Words In The Sichuan Dialect Features

Although the Sichuan dialect vocabulary study has achieved fruitful results since 1980s, the study on its collation and comparison is rare. Therefore, a further in-depth research in terms of its internal classification and external comparisons is needed This paper is divided into five parts.In the first part we have an overview in which the geographical location, the dialect categories and a summary of the Sichuan dialect are respectively introduced.In the second part, by using Mr. Li Rulong'Theory of Characteristic Phrases in Dialects as guidance, some characteristic phrases in Sichuan dialect are categorized and analyzed. We collected data and conducted supplementary survey based on its two judgment criteria. By extracting, stratifying and grading a total of 405 such words according to certain standards, we further divided the Sichuan dialect words into two tiers: the first tier is individual characteristic phrases, a total of 156; the second tier is relationship characteristic phrases, a total of 249. Each tier has two more subsidiary layers: in the first tier there are 49 individual characteristics I phrases, and 107 individual characteristics II phrases; in the second tier there are 190 relationship characteristics I phrases and 59 relationship characteristics II phrases.In the third part those dialect characteristic phrases are examined both synchronically and diachronically. In the synchronic test we pay attention to properties of words and phonological structure: Sichuan dialect characteristic phrases are mainly made up of nouns, verbs and adjectives, and phonological structure is represented by single or double-syllable syllables. In the diachronic test we divide those characteristic phrases into the heritage words, innovation words and variation words.In the fourth part the Sichuan dialect is analyzed and summarized mainly from the aspects of special affixes, dynamic auxiliary, modal, and overlay. These are different as well as unique from Mandarin and are owned only by Sichuan dialect.Finally we examined the relationship among Sichuan and other dialects from lexical level by counting the words these dialects share. The results show that a close relationship exists between Sichuan dialect and official Mandarin.