A Study On Phonology Of Suichang Dialect

There are great differences inside the Wu dialect which could be regarded as a precious mine for dialectological research.At the beginning of this century,the investigation of the Southern Wu dialect is getting deeper and deeper.And there have been some research achievements published.With descriptive and comparative methods,this paper aims to give a deep analysis and research on the Suichang dialect.This paper is divided into five chapters.Chapter one briefly goes over the general situation of Suichang and Suichang dialect,the researches of predecessors,the significance of this paper and the writing instructions.Chapter Two mainly introduces the phonetic system of Suichang dialect.It concludes that there are totally 24 initials(including zero),50 rhymes and 8 tones in Suichang dialect.And relation tables of Suichang dialect phonetic system will be made as well.Chapter Three will compare phonetic system of Suichang dialect with GuangyunChinese mid ancient pronunciation,thus reveals lots of phonological features of Suichang dialect.For example,in Suichang dialect,in aspect of the initials,most of the ancient initials remain;some of ancient Zhi-zu initials are pronounced as ancient Duan-zu initials;some “t(?)” initials become zero initials.As for the aspect of the rhyme,entering tone rhymes remain;ancient rhymes Yu-Yu are almost pronounced similarly;ancient He-KouHu rhymes become Kai-Kou-Hu;In the aspect of the tones,according to Qing Yin Zhuo Yang,Suichang dialect could be divided into eight tones.Chapter Four compares the Suichang dialect with the neighboring dialects.By comparing with the phonetic system of Jinhua,Longyou,Pucheng,Songyang,Longquan,Xuanping,common features will be obtained and the correlations between the Suichang dialect and nearby dialects will be probed into as well.In addition,on the basis of Language Atlas of China,Suichang dialect belongs to Chu-Qu subgroups(片).It’s very reasonable.Chapter five examines variant pronunciation of Suichang dialect.lists 30 groups of variant pronunciations words,then will classifie and analyze them.Chapter six is conclusion.It mainly summarizes the whole thesis,and illustrates deficiencies within.The main innovation of this paper is that it shows and analyzes the special phonetic phenomenon in Suichang dialect through the horizontal and vertical comparison,and provides a lot of vivid cases.This paper has reference value for further study of the Southern Wu.