A Study On The Phonetic Variation Of Mid-Ancient Wei-Initials In Gannan Hakka Dialect

Gannan Hakka dialect,also known as Gannan dialect,belongs to the Hakka,which is also a combination of Hakka dialects and Gan dialect,so it is endowed with unique features.Wei-initial is an important initial in its development and usage.With the immigrants and frequent contacts with Putonghua and many other dialects,the pronunciation of Wei-initials has also undergone a certain degree of variation and change.This study is based on the theory of koineization,speech accommodation,and demographics,adopting conversation and participant observation methods to collect natural conversation corpus from 48 local subjects in Gannan;and using GOLDVARB X and Excel(2010)software to perform statistical analysis on the collected corpus.The main research questions are: 1)What kind of variation and changes have taken place in the pronunciation of Wei-initials in Gannan Hakka dialect?2)How do the social and linguistic factors affect their pronunciation changes? 3)What are the causes for this variation and change?The results of the study show that Wei-initials of Gannan Hakka dialect belong to the light-lip initials in the mid-ancient period,the original form of which was [?].With the evolution of Wei-initials,three new variant forms,heavy-lip initials [m],labiodental initials [v],and zero initials gradually appeared.From a synchronic level,the original form [?] no longer exists,the [m] initials are the existing old varieties,and the [v] initials are new varieties.Zero initials can be regarded as an intermediate transitional variant form of its phonetic change,and adolescents play an extremely important leading role in this process.Social factors such as age,educational background,occupation,etc.are the important parts of its changes.The younger the speakers,the more inclined to use the new variant forms;and the speakers of the same age in different occupations still have differences in the pronunciation of Wei-initials,in general,the higher the occupational class,the new variant forms are used more frequently;gender,however,is the least influential social factor,but women overall more focused on adopting the new variant forms.Linguistic factors also impose a certain impact.Because the original form [?] belongs to a labiodental nasal sound,it is difficult to be articulate,leading it to gradually transform to the similar bilabial nasal sound [m] or labiodental sound [v];on the other hand,before the mid-ancient period,it belongs to the category of [m] initials,which also results in its “returning to origin” trend.In the process of speech accommodation and koineization of the Gannan Hakka dialect,the pronunciation of Wei-initials has gradually been simplified,leading to some forms that now only retain the bilabial nasal sound or dental sound.Population migration over time is one of the causes for the variation and change of Wei-initials.Large-scale immigration brings frequent contact between immigrant dialects and original dialects,resulting in changes in Wei-initials influenced by different dialects in the process.The promotion of Putonghua and the synchronic contact with Gan dialect,which is also the common dialect of Jiangxi province,have made Wei-initials of the Gannan Hakka dialect produce different degrees of variation and change.This study enriches the research on the phonetic features of Hakka dialects and promotes the further speculation of unique phonetic protection in the dialects.More importantly,it provides a certain reference value for how to maintain the harmonious coexistence between dialects or Putonghua and dialect,which is conducive to the construction and development of Hakka dialect culture.