| Tone is an important basis for dialectal partitioning.North-central Jiangxi is the main area of Gan dialects,and the evolution of tones is complex.A comprehensive sorting and generalization of the tone types of Jiangxi Gan dialects and the exploration of their evolution will be beneficial to the study of Gan dialect phonology.In this paper,the number of tones,the pattern of tonal values and the types of tonal patterns of Jiangxi Gan dialects are summarized from a synchronic perspective using the materials of 64 representative tones of Gan dialects in Jiangxi,and the types of tonal evolution,differentiation and merging of Jiangxi Gan dialects and their reasons are discussed from a diachronic perspective in comparison with Middle Archaic tones.At the same time,geolinguistic knowledge is used to map the dialects involved,to show the relationship between phonological evolution and geographical distribution,and to explain the distribution of special tones.This paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is an introduction.It briefly describes the general situation of Gan dialects,including the human geography of Jiangxi Gan dialect area,the formation of Gan dialects,and the distribution and fragment of Jiangxi Gan dialect area.Chapter 2 is an overview of the vocal tones of Jiangxi Gan dialect.It introduces the vocal tones of each dialect point in general,taking the dialect partition as the standard and compare with the divisions of different scholars.The third chapter is about the tone types of Jiangxi-Gan dialects,which are divided into two major parts: tone classes and tone pitch.Firstly,we group the Gan dialect points with the same number of tones together and describe the tonal system in categories.We find that the tonal pattern of Gan dialects with the same number of tones is not necessarily the same;the evolution of ancient and modern tonal patterns of dialect points with the same tonal pattern is also different.We then compile the tonal values and tonal patterns of the four tones in Jiangxi Gan dialect,count the frequency of various tonal patterns in the four tones,and compare the tonal values of yin and yang tones.Chapter 4 is a study of the evolution of tones.The evolution of the four tones is first summarized,and then the evolution of the tones in Jiangxi Gan dialect is analyzed from two perspectives: differentiation and merger.The main factors affecting the differentiation of tones are considered to be voiceless and voiced initials,voiced and sonorant initials.The merging of tones has both complete and incomplete merging,and the causes and characteristics of the merging of tones are analyzed. |
