Investigation And Research On The Tone Of Nanpi Dialect

Nanpi County is located in the southeast of Hebei province, south of Cangzhou.. Nanpidialect belongs to the HUANG LE stream of CANG HUI zone,which is one of the branchesof JI Lu Mandarin. According to field investigation and achievement of former research, Ifound that the tone system, especially the tone sandhi systems of Nanpi county’s dialect, isvery characteristic.This paper takes the tone of the Nanpi county’s dialect as study object, on the basis offield investigation and achievement of former research, and makes a comprehensive analysis,detailed description of the tone system and the three different stress pattern of the Nanpicounty’s dialect. This paper also attempt to analyze the distribution Conditions of the threedifferent stress patterns and the historical association among the three different stresspatterns.The valuable discovery and main research conclusion of this paper is summarized asfollows:1. According to the difference of tones, Nanpi county’s dialect consists of two parts：Nanpi area and Dongxiang area. There are four tone categories in Nanpi area’sdialect:yin-ping(阴平), yang-ping（阳平）,shang-sheng（上声）and qu-sheng（去声）. Thevalue of these four tone categories are213、44、24and51. there are four tone categories inDongxiang area’s dialect:yin-ping(阴平), yang-ping（阳平）,shang-sheng（上声）and qu-sheng（去声）. The value of these four tone categories are213、44、445and51. The values ofshang-sheng（上声）in the two areas are different. In addition,the pronunciation of some finalsare also different in the two areas.2. The tone sandhi rules of disyllabic words in Nanpi dialect are determined by theirstress patterns.And their stress patterns are related to the internal configuration, syntacticfunction and frequency of usage of disyllabic words.The disyllabic words of Nanpi area’sdialect have three different stress patterns:stress-stress pattern, stress-moderate pattern andstress-light pattern.These three stress patterns have different tone sandhi rules. This is the first time that the stress-moderate pattern is discovered in Nanpi area’s dialect.There arehistorical continuity between the impaired syllables in stress-moderate pattern and those instress-light pattern.3. This paper also analyzes the internal configuration and syntactic function of thedisyllabic words existing in stress-stress pattern, stress-moderate pattern and stress-lightpattern.In Nanpi area’s dialect,the stress pattern of disyllabic words is determined by thefollowing factors: firstly, semantic factors. Generally speaking, accent always should beplaced on the syllables which is semantic focus. Secondly, the solidification degree of thedisyllabic words. Those disyllabic words, Internal components of which combined closely,tend to choose stress-light pattern. Thirdly, frequency of usage in daily communication.Those disyllabic words,which are often used in daily communication, tend to choosestress-light pattern.4. Creaky voice exists in falling-rising tones of Nanpi county’s dialect. The falling-risingtones with creaky voice exists in mono-syllable tone, also exist in tone sandhi. Creaky voicein Nanpi county’s dialect can’t distinguish semantic meaning.5. In Nanpi dialect,The modified tones of those syllables that are followed by neutraltone, all have tone values that already exist in the dialect. We can even find several dialects,the mono-syllable tone system of which is very similar to the modified tone system of Nanpiarea’s dialect. In this regard, Nanpi area’s dialect and Shandong dialect are similar.This paper is the first to study the tone system of Nanpi dialect from synchronic anddiachronic perspectives, from mono-syllable tone and tone sandhi as well. This paper canenrich the research of Hebei dialect in the aspect of tone, especially tone sandhi. It can alsooffer certain references to the study of Chinese historical phonetic change and phonetictheory.