Study On The Phonetic System Of Cangxi Dialect In Sichuan Province

This paper deliberately investigates the phonetic system of Cangxi(??)dialect in Guanyuan,Sichuan.According to the Investigation Report of Sichuan Dialect(Yang Shifeng 1984)(????????)and phonetic system of Sichuan Dialect(??????),no phonetic features such as jiantuan(??),pingqiao(??)and rusheng(??)are found in Cangxi dialect.However,our investigation prove that jiantuan(??),pingqiao(??)and rusheng(??)exist in many towns.The distributions of this 3 features in Cangxi slightly differ from one another,for instance,Yuanxi and Yunfeng only have rusheng feature,while Qiping and Longshan share two features of jiantuan and pingqiao,and Huanma systematically keep 3 features.When it comes to rusheng,Huanma town preserve the most rusheng characters,Yunfeng the least and a large number of a yangping(??)characters are change into rusheng characters.In the jiantuan distribution area,the antient jing group(??)and jian group(??)keep clear distinguishment,which means they seldom mixed with each other.In Huanma,there are some characters from jian group(??)even have not palatalized yet.In the pingqiao distribution area,the antient jing group(??)and jian group(??)seldom mixed up.The antient initials ni(?)and lai(?)preceding hongyin(??)sound as l,while they are strictly distinguished when preceding xiyin(??),in which situation lai(?)sound as l and ni(?)sound as ?,merging into yi(?).There are also systematical variant pronunciation in some dialect in Cangxi,for instance,the nucleus vowels of some characters from shen(?),zhen(?),dang(?),zeng(?),geng(?)final group has two pronaunciation----a and e,and the former is proved to be colloquial pronunciation and the latter literary reading.This paper has 5 chapters.Chapter 1 is introduction.This chapter introduce the research review,the geographical position,administrative division,population and basic information of singers.Chapter 2 refers to phonetic system.This chapter mainly introduce the phonological systems of Yongning(??),Qiping(??),Yunfeng(??),Huanma(??)and give detail explain to the acoustic formant chart,tonal model and special phonetic phonomena.Chapter 3 elaborate the phonological fetures of Cangxi dialect and compare Cangxi dialect with mediaeval Chinese,huganghua(???)dialect and nanluhua(???)dialect? Chapter 4 is discussion.It involve 5 aspects:(1)From the perspect of phonetics,we analyse the characters and form reason of the rusheng tone of Cangxi(??),and the acoustic features between rusheng tone and yangping tone of Yunfeng(??)dialect.The analysis indicates that the [+long] feature in Yunfeng rusheng tone is a kind of phonemic compensation for the independent rusheng phoneme after the rusheng finals,which is very important phonetic constituents of rusheng,gradually diappeared under the extended and overwhelming impact of huguanghua dialects.The paper also prove that the falling tail of rusheng in Yunfeng caused by phonetic compromise resulting from the fiercely competitition between the phonetic independency of rusheng and the impact of surrounding ruguiyangping(????)rule.On the base of above analysis,we further consider the epithesises after high-vowel simple finals have close relavance with [+long] featured rusheng tone.(2)Summarising the sandhi models of double character groups of common noun in Huanma dialect.The sandhi is governed by tonal contour and tonal sequence.The rising tone change to level tone if it is preceded other tone,and no tonal change occurs if it precede other tone.However,the falling tone change to level tone if it precede other tone and no tonal change occurs if it is preceded by other tone.The level tone never change its tone whatever its tonal contour and sequence in character groups.Reduplication noun has some different sandhi models compared with common noun.All the tone of the last characters can be change to yinping(??)in the double-character groups,but in yinping,yangping and qusheng duplication nouns,the last tone are usually obligatory yinping.(3)Based on the comparative analysis,we discuss the variant pronunciation.The colloquial pronunciation a has strictly corresponding relation with nanluhua dialects in west and southern Sichuan,which indicates Cangxi dialects shared the same phonological features with nanluhua dialects in early stage.But further evidence show that Cangxi dialect experimence a series of creative phonetic evolution.The literary reading e is obvious latter stratum which has strictly corresponding relation with huguanghua dialects such as Chengdu and Chongqing dialects.(4)Discussing the Sichuan dialects from the perspect of Cangxi dialect.The pingqiao,jiantuan and rusheng features indicates Cangxi shares the same phonological features with shuyu(??)which reflects the phonetic system of the Suining,Sichuan in Ming dynasty.Inspired by the different distribution on pingqiao,jiantuan and rusheng features in different towns,we examine the whole distribution situation on these features of all counties in Sichuan province,which leads a conclusion that these features are widely distribute in Sichuan and the area they distributed is overlap to a certain extent.Considering Cangxi share some important features with shuyu,we make a conclusion that the pingqiao,jiantuan and rusheng features in Cangxi dialect are residues of antient(before Ming)Sichuan dialect.(5)Discussing the criteria of nanluhua dialects standards.Since pingqiao,jiantuan and rusheng features distribute widely in Sichuan dialect and Cangxi dialect has strict corresponding relation with nanluhua dialects,the pingqiao,jiantuan feature should be considered as two important criteria of nanluhua dialects.So we expand the criteria from the original 9 to 11.Chapter 5 is conclusion.