An Acoustic Study On Obstruent Consonants Of Lanzhou Dialect

Lanzhou, located in the central part of Gansu province, is the capital city of the province. Its dialect belongs to Lanyin Mandarin. So far there has been much information about Lanzhou dialect phonetics, and its research results have been gained by linguists through the traditional listening-noting method. The paper is to take obstruent consonants as the research object. Based on the previous results, this paper concerns plosives, fricatives and affricates of Lanzhou dialect through an acoustic experiment and statistical analysis in order to reveal characteristics of obstruent consonants in Lanzhou dialect. This paper is composed of five chapters.The first chapter basically introduces the background of Chinese dialects, the history of experimental phonetics and the research situation of Lanzhou dialect phonetics. Meanwhile, it also points out the research significance.The second chapter is a brief introduction to the geography and history of Lanzhou, the regional distribution and the phonological system of Lanzhou dialect.The third chapter is a brief introduction to the experimental procedures and methods. It consists of five small parts:selection and design of the test words, selection of the major informants, methods of recording, the analysis software for phonetics, experimental items and tasks.The fourth chapter is the core part of this paper, and it mainly talks about an acoustic analysis on obstruent consonants in Lanzhou dialect. Firstly, we measure the VOT and GAP value of Lanzhou plosives through Praat, and then establish the acoustic pattern in accordance with the two values. At the same time, we make a comparison among Beijing Mandarin, Lanzhou dialect, Suzhou dialect and Taiyuan dialect to analyze their acoustic similarities and differences. Secondly, we measure the duration of Lanzhou fricatives and affricates to focus on their acoustic features respectively.The fifth chapter is the summary and prospect of this paper.