The Study On The Phonology Of Zhangshi Dialect In Guiyang,Hunan Province

Local dialect is the most complex dialect in Guiyang County,in which dialects are different even within ten miles distance.It is quite common that people from neighboring village cannot understand each other.The Zhangshi dialect is one of the many dialects in Guiyang County and also belongs to “Southern Hunan Dialect”.In the studies of modern Chinese dialects,the study about “Southern Hunan Dialect”is insufficient and even less about the Zhangshi dialect.So,this thesis focuses on analyzing the phonetic system of Zhangshi dialect in an effort to add some useful materials to the overall study of “Southern Hunan Dialect”.The Zhangshi dialect has its unique phonetic features:It has not many initials but in which there are two sets of Ancient Chinese Initials,i.e., the laminals ? ?? ? and the lingua-palatal phonemes ? ?? ?;The finals are quite different from the those of Mandarin Chinese.The nasal finals of Zhangshi dialect are mainly nasal consonants but lateral consonants are gradually forming under the influence of Mandarin;There are four tones in the Zhangshi dialect,in which pingsheng divided into the high and level tone and the rising tone,turdility in the falling-rising tone return to the falling tone,rusheng consonant endings disappeared,the ancient rusheng return to the rising tone.In this thesis,synchronic description and diachronic comparison are used to study the phonetic features of the Zhangshi dialect.Through field surveys,the systems of its initials,finals and tones are described in great detail and the collocational rules among them are summarized and the homophones are gathered.Besides objective description,the thesis also summarizes the phonological characteristics of Zhangshi dialect and compares it with Mandarin as well as Ancient Chinese Phonology from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives,by which the phonetic features and the evolutionary history of Zhangshi dialect are summarized and presented here for any reference.