A Monographic Study On The Grammar Of Yuyao Dialect

Yuyao city is located in Ningbo-Shaoxing Plain,in the east of Zhejiang Province.The East part is Adjacent to Ningbo.The south part is adjacent to Fenghua,The west part is borderd with Shangyu,Shaoxing;The north part adjacent to Cixi.Yuyao dialect is located between Shaoxing sub-cluster and Ningbo sub-cluster of Taihu cluster of the Wu dialect group.It is affected by Shaoxing dialect and Ningbo dialect.It both have the remains of the ancient Shaoxing dialect,also influenced by modern Ningbo dialect.It have great research value.Currently,the research of Yuyao dialect has not comprehensive and deep enough.This paper takes Yuyao dialect’s three distinctive grammatical phenomena as study object.The study is based on synchronic description,systematically explore their semantic feature and grammatical function.At the same time,use grammaticalization,cognitive linguistics and other theories to explain partial grammatical phenomena.Conduct diachronic investigation by combining Yuyao dialect with ancient Chinese and modern Chinese.It also conducts a synchronic comparison into modern Chinese and other Chinese dialect.Chapter One: Introduction.This chapter mainly introduces Yuyao’s geographical location,population profile,historical overview,the classification,general situation of phonological system and research summary of Yuyao dialect,the source of the corpus and style explanation of this paper.Chapter Two: Demonstrative interjection.Demonstrative interjection means a character that has both the characteristics of interjections and functions of demonstratives.This chapter makes an overall and thorough investigation on grammatical function,semantic features,pragmatic function and source of the two demonstrative interjection “nuo” and “na”.“Nuo” and “na” have a long history and are widely distributed in Wu dialect area,they,their meaning and usage are generally the same,both can become an independent sentence and serve as demonstratives.They do not constitute grammatical components.Their pronunciation are complicated.They are frequently used in people’s daily communication.When using “nuo” and “na”,must accompany with body language to enhance the strength of expression and make clear the purpose of expression.We study “nuo” and “na” from the perspective of pronunciation and meaning,we hold that they are different phonetic varieties from the same word.Their etymology is “ruo” which is a demonstrative and the second personal pronoun in ancient Chinese.Same as demonstratives,demonstrative interjections have phonological iconicity.Their indicating distance are related to the how big the mouth should open of vowels.Demonstrative interjections in Yuyao dialect are absolutely accorded with phonological iconicity.Chapter three: Preposition.This chapter mainly introduce the preposition system of Yuyao dialect.Yuyao dialect have preposition and postposition,but postposition is much stronger.Through description,combine with the theory of linguistic typology,we study the source of special prepositions from diachronic perspective and compare the similarities and differences with adjacent dialects from synchronic perspective.And then make corresponding cognitive interpretation.Analysis on why postposition are stronger from word order typology perspective.Chapter four: Modal Particle.This chapter embarks from semantics,describes common modal particles in detail.Divides modal particle system into two types,modal particle in sentences and at the end of sentence.Among them,modal particle in sentences can be divided into virtual modal particle and pausing modal particle;modal particles at the end of sentence can be used in four sentence patterns:declarative sentence,interrogative sentence,exclamatory sentence,imperative sentence.This chapter studies the sources and grammaticalization pathways of special modal particles based on description and analyzed diachronic development by comparing with peripheral dialect.Chapter five: Conclusion.Summarize the full text and discuss shortcomings of this paper.