An Investigation For Dialect Vocabulary In Shouyan Village,Daozhou,Hunan Province

This thesis conducts a field investigation on the lexicon of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou, Hunan province based on Table of Lexicon Based on Dialect Fieldwork. With various kinds of approaches for language studies,including the fieldwork, the graphical method, comparison and the combination of synchronic description and seeking source, it works out the lexicon of Shouyan dialect which includes more than 3000 entries.Besides, it makes a comparative study between the lexicon of Shouyan dialect and that of Chinese Mandarin. In addition, it labors the syllable number, morphemes, motivation of word formation, historical levels,nominal affixes, special form of adjectives and the usage of some quantifiers in hope that it will be material for the comprehensive and in-depth research on dialects in south Hunan province.This thesis consists of seven parts.Part One gives a brief introduction to the general situation of the human geography, history and language of Daozhou and the town of Shouyan, the research status of Daozhou dialect, the significance and approach of this study, the informants and the phonetic system of Shouyan dialect.Part Two analyzes the syllable number and morphemes of the lexicon of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou and elaborates the differences andsimilarities in the number of syllables and the morphemes between words of Shouyan dialect and those of Chinese Mandarin.Part Three is the analysis of motivation behind word formation in the lexicon of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou.It is mainly done in two aspects: direct naming and indirect naming.The fourth part analyzes the historical levels of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou. With the substratum theory for language and analyzing the historical levels of lexicon in Shouyan dialect based on the basis of historical background, this part analyzes the constituents of the historical levels of lexicon of Shouyan dialect from levels of the substratum of minority language, the archaism,the Xiang dialect, Ke Gan dialect,official dialect and distinctive words in Shouyan dialect.The fifth part is the lexical analysis of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou.In this part,it studies“子”in Shouyan dialect and its variants which are also affixes in terms of form,meaning and function.Apart from this,it analyzes the usage of the special form of adjective“A莫得A”and characteristic quantifiers such as“头”and“�'”.Part Six is the lexicon of Shouyan dialect in Daozhou. Based on the glossary in chapter four of Linguistic Data and Filing specification in Language Study, this thesis uses Shengfei, an audio collection procedure to collect linguistic data on the spot, sorts out more than 3000 entries in an overall way and arranges them in terms of meaning with the number ofcategories amounting 32. On the basis of the real situation of Shouyan dialect, there are additions and deletions among the collected entries.Part Seven is the conlusion which summarizes the main features of the lexicon of Shouyan dialect and the originalities and limitations of this thesis.