Historical Phonetic Comparison Between Shandong Three Mandarins And Beijing Mandarin

Shandong Province, whose dialects belong to the Central Plain Mandarin,the Jilu Mandarin and the Jiaoliao Mandarin, lies in the eastern area of China. It locates at the lower reach of Yellow River and on the shore of Bohai Sea. Studies of the Shandong dialects have led to many great achievements, which can mainly be found in the series of Shandong Dialect Chronicle Books, edited by Qian Zeng Yi. However, these studies are often limited to single points. Here, we study the Shandong dialects as differentiated Mandarin dialects, and compare them to Beijing Mandarin to identify differences and ties. As we rarely see comparison papers or writings of Shandong dialects and Beijing Mandarin, this paper is an attempt. We selected39dialect points for this study. By using the TFD Chinese dialects processing system and a combined method of historical comparison and synchronic comparison, description, analysis and comparison of the phonetic systems of the selected dialects have been made. The thesis comprises seven chapters:The first chapter is Introduction, introducing the geographical and cultural profile of Shandong, the partition and attribution of Shandong dialects, and the identification and zoning issues of the Beijing Mandarin. The fist chapter summarized predecessors’outcomes of the research of the phonetics of Shandong and Beijing Mandarins. It also elaborated the study materials, methods and research significance of this thesis. Chapter2is phonetic types and comparison of initials, which is to examine the evolution of medieval initials in every dialect area and do a comparative analysis. Chapter3to Chapter5is a comparative study of finals. These chapters examine the evolution of medieval Yinsheng, Yangsheng and Entering rhymes in different mandarin dialects respectively. Chapter6is about the types of tones and comparison, investigating tone types and tone values of the3Mandarin dialects in Shandong and the Beijing Mandarin, and their correspondence to medieval tones with a comparative analysis. Chapter7is a conclusion. It summarizes all the researches above from aspects of initials, finals and tones.