The Ningde dialect (Eastern Min: ) is a dialect of Eastern Min Chinese spoken in urban areas of Ningde, China, which is a prefecture-level city in the northeastern coast of Fujian province.
Phonology The Ningde dialect has 15 initials, 78 rimes and 7 tones.
Initials , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Rimes 10 monophthongs: , , , , , , , ,
18 compound vowels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
15 nasal rimes: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
26 checked rimes: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
These 6 nasal rimes tend to merge into nasal rimes ending with coda , and will disappear in future: , , , , ,
These 5 checked rimes tend to merge into nasal rimes ending with coda , and will disappear in future: , , , ,
Tones No.1234567Tone namedark level陰平light level陽平rising上聲dark departing陰去light departing陽去dark entering陰入light entering陽入Tone contour (44) (22) (42) (35) (332) (2) (5)
Initial assimilation The two-syllable initial assimilation rules are shown in the table below:
Coda of the Former Syllable Initial Assimilation Null codaThe initial of the latter syllable may change: , change to null initial or //; , and change to ; and change to null initial or //; , and change to null initial; , , , and null initial remain unchanged. Nasal codaThe initial of the latter syllable may change: and change to ; , and change to ; and change to or ; , , and null initial change to or ; , , and remain unchanged. checked coda The former syllable lost its checked coda at first; then, the initial assimilation of latter syllable follow the law above. checked coda The Initial of latter syllable change to while the former syllable lost its checked coda
Tone sandhi The Ningde dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the columns give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the rows give the citation tone of the second syllable):
dark level44light level22rising42dark departing35light departing332dark entering2light entering5dark level44 442144214421light level22 remain unchangedrising42 55dark departing35 55light departing332 442144214421dark entering2 55light entering5 442144214421
Notes
References