Studies on Dialects in the Shanghai Area
Their Phonological Systems and Historical Developments
Zhongmin Chen
University of California, Berkeley
This study is an analysis of phonological systems and historical developments of dialects in the Shanghai Area.
Though there are five groups in the area, it is the historical development of The City group in the period from the 1850's to present which will be of primary concern to us in this study. There are five chapters and two appendices in the study. Chapter One presents the general information about the location, history, administration, and population of the area, an overview of previous studies, and a brief discussion of the research methods and databases employed in the study. Chapter Two addresses the internal divergence between the dialects and classifies the dialects in the area into five groups. The analysis includes the criteria of the classification, the classification of the dialects, and the historical-cultural background of the classification. I treat the characteristics of tonal systems as a principal criterion in classifying the dialects in the area into five groups. Finally, a brief description of the phonological systems of the four representative dialects in the suburban area will be given.
Chapter Three is a description of the phonological system of The City group. The sound system of The City group is based on most people's (majority) pronunciation. The differences between "majority" and "older", and other variations will be also discussed in this chapter. Chapter Four presents a discussion of some major sound changes in the dialects. This analysis includes tonal developments, pre-glottalized stops and their developments, the difference between literary and colloquial readings, and the pronunciation strata of the Yu rhyme category of Middle Chinese. Chapter Five discusses the major sound changes that have occurred in The City group from the 1850's to present by comparing the four sound systems from three periods. Appendix One is the language atlas in the area. There are twenty-five maps in this appendix, including administrative maps, two maps on the classification of the dialects, and twenty-one maps of language features. Appendix Two is a comparative morpheme-syllabary.
The pronunciations of more than 2,000 characters from the five groups are listed in this appendix.
ISBN 9783895869785. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 46. 260pp. 2003.
