A Phonological Study On Danzhou Dialect

Located in the Northwestern part of Hainan province,the idyllic Danzhou city is reputed as Dan'Er prefecture in ancient times.It is widely accepted that Danzhou dialect is one of the most populously spoken dialects in Hainan.Based on the previous research,this paper mainly focuses on Xinzhou accent,the standard sound in Danzhou dialect,and additional three other accents,namely Guangcun,Yaxing,and Haitou.It aims to analyze the accents'(hereinafter referred to Danzhou dialect)phonology drawn on the author's field investigation in Danzhou city.Firstly,Danzhou geography,Danzhou cultures,the dialect,research background,research significance,methodology and the dialect sources are introduced as the basic facts.Secondly,the phonology,tone sandhi,exegetical pronunciation,and popular pronunciation are described in detail based on the investigation in terms of Danzhou dialect.Thirdly,this paper discusses diachronically the evolution of the sound,final,and tone from Song dynasty to the present.Lastly,on the comparison of the internal phonetic value in Danzhou dialect,the phonetic homogeneity and differences are discussed and explained fully.The phonological characteristics of Danzhou dialect are as follows.Firstly,ancient voiced initials are all devoiced at present in terms of colloquial pronunciation in Danzhou dialect,and it can be either aspirated or unaspirated on basis of the tone with respect to literary language.As for finals,the pronunciations are identical between the third division of round-mouth,Yu She(??),and third division of open-mouth,Zhi She(??),between the first division of open-mouth and round-mouth in Shan She(??),and between the open-mouth vowel of grade one and the grade three vowels in Dang She(??).However,the vowels of second division are different from those of the third division in terms of Geng She(??)Besides,Danzhou dialect continues to have the ancient stop codas-p,-t,-?There are six tones in Danzhou Dialect which can be divided into two registers,namely Yin and Yang.The upper rising tone and falling tone both in Yin are pronounced the same in ancient times,but differentiate nowadays.Ancient Yang upper rising tone is the same as ancient Yang upper departing tone,but they differ nowadays.In the literary pronunciation,ancient even tone is divided into Yin and Yang while upper rising tone and upper departing tone do not show any difference between Yin and Yang.Ancient upper rising tone is aspirated initials,while unvoiced initials are mostly upper departing tone.And Ancient upper departing tone is most classified as upper rising tone except unvoiced initials.