A Comparative Study On Pronunciation Of Qidong Dialect

In recent years, research on Qidong dialects is mainly based on QidongHongqiao. Traditional research methods are adopted to inv estigate and describe thephonological systems of Qidong dialects, which is not comprehensive. In this paper,we will conduct comparative studies on their similarities and differences of Qidongdialects from the perspective of phonetics between eastern Qid ong, western Qidongand central Qidong.In this paper, we will use field survey to collect relevant corpus and theexperimental methods to analyze the speech comparatively. Their similarities anddifferences will be contrasted in the order of initial conso nants, finals and tones. Interms of initial consonants, we compared the modern pronunciation of the ancientinitial Ni, ancient initial Lai, ancient initial Ri, ancient initial Yi of these three areas.Through voice experiments, we found that the value o f VOT of the ancient words withfull voiced initial consonants proved to be “slack voice”. In terms of finals, wecompared their modern pronunciation of ancient Zhenshe Hekou sandeng,GengsheHekou sandeng, ancient Xieshe, ancient Zhishe Hekou sandeng. We focused on thevalue of high vowel [i] and the differences of its friction range in the three areas ofQidong. We found that initial consonants with [t] were affected by the vowel. Wealso experimentally measured the fundamental values of tone of Qidong d ialect. Itwas found that the entering tone category still exists in eastern and central Qidongregardless of Yin and Yang category. But in western Qidong areas, the entering toneYang category has merged with falling tone Yang category. Meanwhile, the tone typesand tone values are different in different areas of Qidong.There are four chapters in this paper totally:The first chapter introduced the geography, history, population, language usestatus, status of this research, the corpus source, significanc e and methods.The second chapter described the phonological systems of Qidong dialect. Inthe sequence of initial consonants, finals and tones, the phonological systems ofQidong Chengguan,Buyunqiao,Huangtupu were described and their phonetic featureswere summarized.In the third chapter, we compared the phonetic differences of the dialects infour locations by phonetic sequence.By comparing modern pronunciation of the ancient initial Ni, ancient initial Lai, ancient initial Ri, ancient initial Yi of di fferentlocations in Qidong, we found that eastern Qidong was affected by the northerndialects much more than western and central Qidong and thus the similarities betweenphonetic changes of these initials in eastern Qidong and those of northern dialects.Through voice experiments, we found that the value of VOT and H1-H2of theancient words with full voiced initial consonants proved to be “slack voice”. In termsof finals, we compared their modern pronunciation of ancient Zhenshe Hekousandeng,Gengshe Hekou sandeng, ancient Xieshe, ancient Zhishe Hekou sandeng.High vowel [i] in Qidong dialect rubs into [] and vowel [i] leads to the initials of[t]>[]. But their friction range are different, among which friction range inBuyunqiao of Western Qidong and Linguan of Eastern Qidong is greater thanHongqiao in the west and Buyunqiao bridge in the central area.We alsoexperimentally measured the fundamental values of tone of Qidong dialect. It wasfound that the entering tone category still exists in eas tern and central Qidongregardless of Yin and Yang category. But in western Qidong areas, the entering toneYang category has merged with falling tone Yang category. Meanwhile, the tone typesand tone values are different in different areas of Qidong. Tona l differentiation isroughly the same. Even tones have Yin and Yang categories. Rising Yang categoryreads falling tone except a small number which still reads rising tone. Falling toneshave Yin and Yang which respectively characterizes high and low voic e. Falling tonesare reserved regardless of Yin and Yang. In western areas, there are only Yin categoryand entering tone Yang and falling tone Yang merge with each other. It was found thatthe entering tone category still exists in eastern and central Qid ong regardless of Yinand Yang category. But in western Qidong areas, the entering tone Yang category hasmerged with falling tone Yang category. Meanwhile, the tone types and tone valuesare different in different areas of Qidong.In the fourth chapter, we described the colloquial phenomenon of Qidongdialects, and generalized its homophony syllabary. Initial Ni is read zero initial bothin text reading and oral reading in eastern and central dialects while zero initialreading in text reading and [] in oral reading in western areas. Text reading ofinitial Lai is the same despite of different locations. However, oral reading is read [l]in eastern areas and [] or [n] in western and central areas. s read zero initial both intext reading and oral reading in eastern and central dialects while zero initial readingin text reading and [] in oral reading in western areas.Words with initial medieval Jing are read [] in text reading in both western, central and eastern areas and respectively [],[x] in oral reading.Finally, it is the last part of the paper, it summarized the main points of thisarticle. This paper argues that there are differences in Qidong dialects in terms ofinitial consonants, finals and tones. The reasons for these differences are not only theinternal evolution of this dialect, but also are related to various factors such as dialectcontact, geography, history, culture, economy and the impact of Mandarin.