The Research Of Phonology Of Dingbian Town Dingbian County Shaanxi Province

Belonging to Yulin city,Shaanxi province,Dingbian county is located at the junction of Shaanxi,Gansu,Ningxia and Inner Mongolia provinces.In ancient times,it was said that "Dingbian county is bordered by Yuyan to the east,Ganliang to the west,Huanqing to the south and a desert to the north.With expansive lands and long boudaries,it functions as a fortress of Sanqin land(Shaanxi region)".There are three sorts of sub-dialects in Dingbian county: southern-central,northern and eastern sub-dialects,and Dingbian town dialect belongs to the first one,in other words,can be classified into Qinlong dialect of Zhongyuan Mandarin.Based on Dingbian town dialect’s pronunciation,this paper describes the basic phonetic features of Dingbian town dialect and analyzes its historical phonological features and levels.By comparing it with the dialect of Huamachi town,located at the west to Dingbian town(now Yanchi town,Ningxia Autonomous Region)and Wuqi town,located at the southeast to Dingbian town(now Wuqi county,Yan ’an city),we make a systemic analysis of Dingbian town dialect phonetics in terms of the transitional features on elements including initials,finals and tones,which gives us a more in-depth understanding on the characteristics of the dialects in the transitional zones.This paper is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is "Introduction",this part mainly involves three aspects: Firstly,a brief overview of Dingbian county’s geography,history and population;Secondly,an explanation of the attribution and internal differences of Dingbian dialect;Thirdly,an illustration of the source of corpus,examples and introduce pronunciation partners.The second chapter,"The phonetic system of Dingbian dialect" : describes the homophone phonology of Dingbian dialect,and then lists the syntactic list and homophones.The third chapter,"Synchronic tone change of Dingbian dialect" : describes the disyllabic group tone change,light tone and nature,rhyme and other tone changes in the synchronic plane of Dingbian dialect.It also summarizes the law of tone change and analyzes the causes of tone change.The fourth chapter,"The correspondence between Dingbian dialect and Chinese ancient sounds" : lists the correspondence between Dingbian dialect and Chinese ancient sounds,summarizes their phonological features and exceptional words,and analyzes the causes of some exceptional words.This chapter provides materials for this study on the phonetic hierarchy of Dingbian dialect.Chapter five,"The phenomenon and historical hierarchies of different pronunciation in different forms of Dingbian dialect”: Based on these materials,and taking Chiehyunn,Northwest dialect of Tang and Song dynasties and Zhongyuan Mandarin as historical reference points,this chapter analyzes the historical hierarchy of initial,final and tone of Dingbian dialect,and probes into the historical process of the formation of Dingbian dialect from a diachronic perspective.Chapter six,"Transitional features of Dingbian dialect" : With Dingbian town dialect pronunciation as the basis,this chapter compares this dialect with the dialect of Huamachi town,seated at the west to the Dingbian town(now Yanchi town,Ningxia Autonomous Region),and dialect of Wuq i town,seated at the southeast to the Dingbian town(now Wuqi county,Yan ’an city).From the micro perspective,it analyses Dingbian town dialect in details in terms of synchronic and diachronic similarities and differences of initials,finals and tones between above three dialects,and also summarizes Dingbian town dialect’s transitional features in phonetic aspect,as well as discovers the development of Dingbian town dialect,which originally belongs to Zhongyuan Mandarin under the influence of Lanyin Mandarin and Jin Dialect.