Liangshan Dialect Sound Change

Liangshan, the southwestern part of Shandong province, is situated in the place where the Zhongyuan mandarin and Jilu mandarins co-exist, and Liangshan dialect has numerous transitional features. Starting from the synchronic and diachronic approaches, the present dissertation studies sound changes in Liangshan dialect in an all-round way, presents a dynamic description of the dialectal features, and summarizes the general law regarding the sound flow changes. By contrasting the phonetic features of Liangshan dialect and other related dialects, the present dissertation studies the causes of the features of the Chinese dialects and their regional changes from the angle of dialect geography. And the present dissertation presents a quantitative analysis of dialect word-sound as a scientific basis for areas of dialects.The present dissertation is subdivided into Five Chapters, and the chief content of each chapter is as follows.Chapter One is Introduction, which gives a general introduction of the geographic location, historical changes and administrative division of Liangshan county. In addition, the dissertation gives a general account of the area Liangshan dialect belongs to, its phonetic features, interior differences and phonetic system of individual words. This part also points out the significance in selecting the present topic and its research method.Located in the southwestern part of Shandong province, Liangshan county is the place where the famous novel of All Men are Brothers took place,the Yellow River flows through its northwestern part and the Grand Canal flows through to the south. Historically, Liangshan belonged to Dongping, Shouzhang, Donge, Wenshang,Yuncheng, and Liangshan was established as a county in 1949.The phonetics of Liangshan dialect basically accords with the features of the Zhongyuan mandarin, with the coloring of Jilu mandarins. Most of sub-voiced Rusheng are in the group of Yinping tone, a few of them are in the group of Qusheng tone; The three groups of initials Zhi-zhuang-zhang and Kaikou-hong sound initials in Jing-group join together, reading as[ts ts's]; No matter in Hong or Xi sound, most of Hekou initials in Jing-group read as [tc tc' c] combine with Cuokou finals; the Hekou fricative of Zhi-system read as labiodental sound [fj; The three initials, Fei-fu-feng, in Hekou 3rd Deng of Zhi-xie rhyme systems read as [cy] or [fi]. Within Liangshan dialect, differences in pronunciation between the northwestern and the southeastern part are greater.Chapter Two deals with sound changes in speech flow. This chapter chiefly introduces tone sandhi, Er-hua sounds and others synchronic sound-changes in Liangshan dialect.First, a tone sandhi mode of disyllabic words is minutely described and given, and tone sandhi mode of disyllabic words in which the latter syllable is read lightly. In grammatical forms of Liangshan dialect, the single-letter tone has lost its restrictive function, while tone sandhi has become a fixed mode. The present dissertation gives a comparatively deeper discussion of the tone-sandhi mode characteristic of the dialect.Second, the present dissertation gives a detailed description of the Er-hua phenomenon in Liangshan dialect, providing informative materials of the Er-hua syllable and exemplary words. In the second place Er-hua in Liangshan dialect has different influence on finals, initials and tones. The present dissertation gives anaccount of the specific functions of the Er-hua and discusses the laws regarding the Er-hua sound-changes.Third, special sound-change in Liangshan dialect is discussed. Special sounds of place-names in and around Liangshan area contain laws regarding specific pronunciation. In place-names in and around Liangshan area there generally exists a zero-syllable phenomenon, but these left-over traces can only be clearly detected in preceding Shangsheng tone characters and Qusheng tone characters, while zero-syllable phenomenon in preceding Yingping tone characters and Yangping tone characters can never be detected. By analyzing the formation of zero-syllable phenomenon in Liangshan place-names, the present dissertation relatively scientifically explains how the specific sound shift comes into being. In addition, the present dissertation analyzes and discusses the specific pronunciation brought about by assimilation in sound changes in speech flow around Liangshan area.Chapter Three deals with synchronic sound-change. This is done by contrasting middle-age and ancient sounds regarding initial, final and tone system, so as to vertically grasp the flow of synchronic sound-change in Liangshan dialect. In the first place, having a modern viewpoint is necessary to look, at the ancient and middle-age sources for the initial, finals and tones. Second, the author starts from the middle-age and ancient sound, and observes separation and merging in Liangshan dialect sound system. The author makes use of a elaborately-designed diagraph to display the changes from ancient times to modern times, so as to reveal the features of the specific dialect as follows.First, features of Liangshan initials are examined from the ancient and modern evolution. All voiced initials become voiceless; Most of the characters from the three initials Fei-fu-feng read as [f], except that Fei group in He-kou 3rd Deng of Zhi-xie rhyme systems read as [cy] or [fi]. The characters from Kai-kou Jing-group read as [ts ts' s] or [t t ] respectively according to Hong-xi, while most characters from He-kou in Jing-group read as [tc tc'