A Study On The Evolution Of The Vowel System In Taiwanese

This dissertation, taking Tai branch of Kam-Tai group as its main research object, and the historical evolution of finals and the Time-depth of phonological features of Tai Languages as its major concern, involves the types of vowels, the structure of finals, the correspondence of finals, the rules of sound change, the evolution of Tai Languages and the Chinese loanwords in Tai Languages.The whole dissertation consists of seven chapters as follows:Chapter one is the introduction, which consists of the research objects, significance, expectations, material and approaches for analyzing. This Chapter especially focuses on the review of the relevant researches in Kam-Tai languages, which can be divided into two parts:the historical evolution and the comparative study on finals.Chapter two studies the types of vowel and the structure of final, bases on the statistical date comes from phonological materials of 116 dialects. The author of this essay analyzes the vowel quality inventories, vowel frequency and the extended mode of modern Tai Language from the perspective of types of vowel; proposes three phonological features which including long-short vowel opposition,yin/yang/ru(阴/阳/入) rhymes match and vocalic medium deficiency from the perspective of the structure of finals;finds out three ways of variation tendency which including the vowel quality inventories adjustment, the vowel long-short opposition regression and the rhyme symmetric structure break from the perspective of system reconfiguration.Chapter three analyzes the vowel correspondence of finals in Tai Language, which bases on the cognate materials from 54 dialects. This chapter mainly forces on the correspondence of vowel in open syllables, six-vowel versus nine-vowel, and low frequency vowels.Chapter four examines the rules of vowel change in Tai Language. The author concludes the rules of sound change in primary cardinal vowels and the marked vowel [ur] which bases on the correspondence of finals,and summarize the rules of vowel change in four categories:monophthong or diphthong in open syllables and long or short vowel in closed syllables.Chapter five probes into the time-depth of evolution in Tai Languages, which involves the language classification of Tai branch, phonological features in Tai branch, phonological features in Saek languages and phonological features beyond Tai branch.Chapter six inspects the time-depth of Chinese loanwords in Tai languages. The author analyses the vowel form of loanwords in yu/yu(鱼/虞) rhymes and yubu/zhibu(鱼部 /之部) rhymes, proposes the historical strata of loanwords in terms of the rhymes splitting-integrating and types of sound change, and measures the time-depth of vowel form in Proto-Tai in terms of the time information in Chinese historical phonology.Chapter seven is the conclusion. The author summarizes the main ideas of the dissertation, and points out some further topics to be discussed.