Tonal Research Of Bunu Language In Qibainong

The Bunu language belongs to the Miao language and has 12 different tones.Based on the status quo of Miao-Yao tone research,experimental phonetics research,and tone typology research,this thesis experiments and analyzes the single-word tone pattern,synchronic tone variation,and historical evolution of the Qibainong Bunu language.The study helps to understand the overall characteristics of the tones of the Miao languages and dialects and contributes to the research and development of tone typology.The full text is divided into four parts as follows:The thesis first briefly describes the study of tones of Miao-Yao language,the study of experimental phonetics and the evolution of tone.It also introduces the origin,purpose,content,theory and methods of the study.According to the historical source and pronunciation length of Bunu tone,12 tones are divided into 5 Shu,3 Cu and 4 independent sandhi tones and analyzed one by one,and the Bunu single-word tone pattern is constructed.Compared with the traditional perceptual method,the experimental method can more accurately display tone register,contour,height and length.Then it explores the synchronic variation of the tones of Qibainong Bunu language from the perspective of sociolinguistics,and uses a mixed-effects model to regression analyze whether the variability of each tone in the language is related to factors such as gender,age,educational level,etc.and found statistically significant factors.I then carefully compared the Intergenerational differences in apparent time with the experimental analysis of the recording data 32 years ago and found 8 tones are evolving.Classified them into four patterns: convex tone,rising tone,falling tone,and level tone,I concluded the corresponding evolution paths.Then I compared them with the tonal evolution path previously summarized and found that the two tone evolution paths of low falling> medium falling> high falling,high level> high rising are consistent with the previous research,thus confirming the general laws of tone evolution;besides,three tone evolution paths that haven't appeared in the former models are found: T11 551(past)> 451(present)> 442(future);T2 213(past)> 24(present);T5 41(past)> 541(present)> 52(future).The discovery of these paths can provide new cases and reasonable explanations for the tonal evolution studies.Then from the internal and external perspectives,the main factors for the Bunu tonal evolution are concluded as coarticulation,reduction,tone differentiating,internal balance of the tone pattern,economic principles,language attitudes and so on.Lastly,through multivariate regression analysis,gender & age & language use were found out to be the related factors that cause the variation in Bunu tone range.Women's tone range is generally lower than men,the analysis also revealed that Bunu tone range is undergoing intergenerational mutation.There is an interaction between language use and age.The range is decreasing for females and for people under 32 who use Bunu less.For men over 32,there is no effect on Range--they are all pretty much the same big.R2 is super duper at 0.904.Finally,through social linguistic investigations,I analyzed the dominant and recessive causes behind the reduction in mother tongue usage and language weakness that lead to range decrease,and learned that the Bunu people need to improve their education,raise their awareness of inheriting language,and promote the use of spelling systems on language development.