An Experimental Study On The Tone In Gansu Yongdeng Dialect

In recent years, the research focus of Chinese language tone has been diverting from the Mandarin to the Chinese dialect; a great amount of studies on Chinese dialect tones have therefore appeared. However, there is no detailed and systematic research about Gansu dialect in the current literatures. Thus, the author would research on the tones of Gansu dialect, in which, the Yongdeng dialect are indispensable object.This study would use acoustics to explore the mono-syllable tone system of Yongdeng dialect which is completely different from the traditional "Speak and Listen’" method. By using experimental and statistical methods, this research would analyze tones in experimental phonetics in order to construct the mono-syllable tone structure of Yongdeng dialect. Besides, through comparing the experimental results and traditional dialect research results, this study aims to testify the traditional tone system or to explore supplementary.The main conclusions obtained in this paper are the following:1Yongdeng dialect tone has three tones:level tone53, falling-rising tone443, falling-rising tone213; the duration pattern is that falling tone and falling-rising tone>level tone.2Yongdeng dialect double-tone pattern is with certain change regularly:the former passive falling tone "53" substituted by "44"; the former positive falling tone "53" substituted by "13"; the former falling-rising tone "213" substituted by "11" the former falling-rising tone substituted "443" by "11"3The research results is accord with the traditional research result, and it revises and supplements the traditional results. Traditional research shows that if the former tone is falling-rising tone, the latter tone would be "44"; however this research results proves that if the former tone is falling-rising tone, the latter tone would be "443".