The Phonetics And Its Geographical Research On The Dialect Of Qianjiang,Hubei Province

Qianjiang within Hubei province lies in the Jianghan Plain, with Hanjiang River to its north, the Yangtze River to its south, the city of Xiantao and Wuhan to its east, and the city of Jingzhou and Yichang to its west.This thesis takes the phonetics of the dialect of Qianjiang, Hubei as the main study subject and makes a comprehensive and detailed description on the phonetics of the modern Qianjiang dialect. A phonology system of the Qianjiang dialect and an elaborate homophone unit table are worked out with the phonetics in Yuanlin sub-district where the local government is located being the representative sounds.First, it suggests there are 18 initial consonants(including zero initials), 36 simple or compound vowels and 4 tones in Qianjiang dialect. By comparing the phonology of Qianjiang Dialect with the ancient Chinese phonology, we found that Qianjiang dialect has features in the following three aspects. First, in the aspect of tones, Qianjiang dialect retains four tones, Yinping-Tone,Yangping-Tone,Shang-Tone and Qu-Tone. The evolution of these four tones is basically similar to the classification rule of four tones in Mandarin except that most characters with Ru-Tone are classified as characters with the Yangping-Tone.Second, most voiced initials with oblique tones are now aspirated due to the influence of the historical immigration from Jiangxi to Hubei and Hunan. And it is found that when the initials of the ancient Zhi group, the ancient Zhuang group, the ancient Zhang group and the ancient Jing group come across today’s hongyin, they will become a group of non-retroflex apical affricates including [ts], [tsh] and [s]. Only a tiny area in the northwest of Qianjiang has the blade-palatal affricates [t(?)], [t(?)h] and [(?)]. Third, the compound vowel of the first-grade Guo-She kaikou-words in Jian group is pronounced as [uo], different from [(?)] in the Mandarin. The third-grade Dang-She kaikou-words of ancient Ru-Tone will be pronounced as [io] when they meet the initials of Duan group and Jian group. “脚”[t(?)io24] is a case in the point.Yang initials still reserves the two nasal tail vowels[n] and [?] and for the back nasal tail vowels, usually [a?] and [u?] are preserved.No one in the city or neighboring areas pronounced like [(?)?] or [i?] but the front nasal tail vowels [(?)n] and [in] respectively instead. Based on the classification criteria of dialects’ subares and through the comparison between the phonetics of Qianjiang Dialect and that of neighboring subareas’ dialects, it is found that Qianjiang Dialect is more closely related with that of Jiangling and Hankou.After that, a geographical linguistic study is conducted based on the internal differences among the Qianjiang dialect. The result is reflected in the form of a map of dialect, highlighting the similarities and variations among the phonetics in the internal region more visually. Based on the difference in phonology, Qianjiang dialect falls mainly into three subareas: the northeast subarea, the south subarea and the northwest subarea. The first one covers the Zhugentan town, Zekou sub-district, Yuanlin sub-district, Yangshi sub-district and the northern part of the Zongkou farm on the east side of Dongjinghe in the north of Qianjiang and Zhouji sub-district, the Zhouji farm, Gaochang sub-district and the Houhu farm on the west side of Dongjinghe. The second one includes parts of north Zongkou, Yuyang, Laoxin, Xiongkou, Longwan and Zhangjin. And the last one consists of Gaoshibei, Wangchang, Jiyukou, Haokou and part of north Zhangjin.