The Study Of Rugao Dialect’s Phonetic System

Rugao is a city located in the eastern of Jiangsu Province, whose dialect belongs to Tong Tai Group of Jianghuai Mandarin. Most People focus more likely on Ruchen town than rural areas and border areas, when they study dialect of Rugao previously. Language contact, competition and stacking exist at the same in border area. It’s a quite complex phenomenon, but with a great value of research. Therefore, the thesis chooses Baipu town as the representative point, which located at the junction of Rugao town and Tongzhou town. The thesis generalizes dialect phonology, analyzes phonological features and discusses transition characteristics by combining historical comparison and synchronic description. The full thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter summarizes the geographic and demographic status of Rugao in history, introduces its dialects and related research, explaines the important significance of this thesis and its research methods.The second chapter describes the phonological system, with Baipu town as the representation. The phonological table is made, in which the words only with pronunciation are explained each with the meaning and sentences annexed to the table.The third chapter compares ancient and modern phonology, with the phonological system "Qieyun" as a reference. Consonants, vowels and tones evolution are analyzed by studying their evolution and division-combination factors. With the cultural and educational development, Rugao dialect phonology keeps changing constantly. The thesis examines the new changed place and analyzes its trends in phonological system.The fourth chapter further reveals the Rugao dialect’s phonological and transition characteristics, with comparison between Rugao and its surrounding area. The thesis compares Rugao dialect in three aspects:Firstly, phonological types of’Cong{从母)’and ’Xie(邪母)’today and the language strate. Rugao dialect does not distinguish between’Cong(从母)’and ’Xie(邪母)’.It pronounce aspirated sound, which is the result of the evolution of the dialect itself. Secondly, the historical evolution and geographical differences of one rhyme category ’Liu She((流摄)’Combined with the historical documents, The theis examines the historical evolution of Rugao and its surrounding dialects on ’Liu She(流摄)’,discusses the evolution of regional differences in the evolution of the rhyme category’You Yun’. Base on this, the thesis summarizes two types of systematization. Thirdly, differences in tone. Thesis analysises citation tones of Rugao city such as the Ruchen, Baipu, Tongzhou through experimental phonetics method; The thesis also compares similarities and differences of phonology merge type in this three city; At the same time, it examines the phonological performance of Shang tone(上声)and Ru tone(入声),analyze its transitional characteristics.The fifth chapter concludes the paper, points out deficiencies and direction of future efforts.