Towards and affiliation of the Nanping Mandarin dialect of Fujian
福建南平官话来源之探讨
Chungyu Chen 陈重瑜
Abstract 摘要
Nanping is one of the two localities in Fujian where Mandarin dialects are spoken. The most conservative feature of Nanping is its retention of velar stops before high front vowels. The dental sibilants remain largely unpalatalized before high front vowels. There are no retroflex initials and the labiodental occurs only as an occasional variant. The alveolar nasal and lateral are in complete free variation. Middle Chinese nasal endings have all merged into a velar nasal. Stop endings have evolved into a glottal stop, which appears only when the syllable is the last stressed syllable before a juncture (/#/). In other positions, the glottal stop together with the shortness is lost. Such behavior of the final glottal stop has not been reported for other dialects. There is historical evidence of several influxes of soldiers and immigrants. This paper attempts to link structural evidence with historical incidents with a view to identifying the source of the main stratum of the Nanping Mandarin dialect.
Journal of Chinese Linguistics volume 9 (ISSN 0091-3723)
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