A Study On The Phonology Of Southern Min Dialect In Shishi

This thesis gives a phonetic and phonological description on the speech sound system of the Shishi Southern Min dialect, both synchronically and diachronically. From the synchronic perspective, it mainly investigates the phonology of Shishi dialect on the basis of fieldwork, including the initial, final and tonal systems, the syllable structures, the sandhi patterns and other relevant issues. Besides, detailed syllable chart and homophone listare also provided for deeper discussion.From the diachronic perspective, exhaustive phonological comparisons regarding initials, finals and tones are respectively made among the Shishi dialect, Guangyun ?? and Huiyin Miaowu ????, in order to classify their corresponding relationships from which a pathway of sound change in the Shishi dialect can be clearly outlined. It is also of theoretical interest to give a sociolinguistic presentation and explanation for some of the sound change phenomena, e.g. the the denasalization of the nasalized vowels. Furthermore, particular phonological issues in the Min dialects, such as the mergence of the ma ? rhyme and jia ? rhyme are also be discussed. It argues conclusively that the mergence of these two rhymes in both literary and colloquial readings should only be attributed to some sporadic results caused by lexical diffusion. That is, the words historically from the ma and jia rythmes whose pronunciations have merged now should be viewed as special case in a phonological sense, which have not yet constituted a specific and systematic stratum.