The Qianjiang(潛江) city is located not only on the boundary of the Southwestern mandarin and the Gan dialect, but also on the boundary of three different sub-cluster regions of the Southwestern mandarin. Therefore, it is difficult to classify the Qianjiang dialect into any region. As a result, the phonological features of the Qianjiang dialect have not yet been systematically studied so far. In order to provide a thorough understanding of the Qianjiang dialect, this thesis focuses on investigating phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect and in particular the aspiration of the Middle Chinese (MC) voice obstruent. As many ancient phonological characteristics are still preserved in today’s Qianjiang dialect, the study also helps us better understand the immigration history of Qianjiang as well as its impact on the Qianjiang dialect. First of all, a summary of phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect is carried out. A set of distinctive phonological characteristics are listed and analyzed with respect to both initials and finals of the Qianjiang dialect. For example, the MC zhongchun(重唇) sounds, the Jiantuanyin(尖團音) , the MC value of the jia (假) rhyme group, the guo (果) rhyme group, and the ji (祭) and qi (齊) rhyme which belong to the historical stratum of Middle Chinese are preserved in the Qianjiang dialect. Those phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect belong to the stratum of the historical stratum of the Southwestern Mandarin are also described in this thesis, such as the confusion of the MC initials ni (泥) and lai (來), the MC zhi (知) group, zhuang (莊) group and zhang (章) group in the Qianjiang dialect. The development from [u] to [«u] of the mo (模) Rhyme in the yu (遇) rhyme group, and the entering tone, wu (屋), wo (沃), zhu (燭) rhyme in the tong (通) rhyme group in the Qianjiang dialect. As a unique characteristic of the Qianjiang dialect, the aspiration of the MC voiced obstruent is thoroughly analyzed in historical and geographical contexts. From the analysis, it can be drawn that the Qianjiang dialect has been impacted by immigrants from northwestern areas during Tang dynasty as well as immigrants from Jiangxi(江西) province during the Ming and Qing dynasty. In addition, the theory of hypercorrection has been established to explain aspirated sound of MC Quanqing (全清 voiceless unaspirated stop and affricates) initials in the Qianjiang dialect. From the investigation of the phonological characteristics of the Qianjiang dialect, this thesis considers the Qianjiang dialect as a dialect transition region between two sub-regions of Southwestern Mandarin represented by the Chengyu(成渝) region and the Wutian(武天) region. The Qianjiang dialect itself has inherited phonological features from immigrants of other areas and do stand out as an important language resource to mirror the profound historical shifts in Chinese history.

The Heyang dialect has many distinct phonological features, which make it quite different from its adjacent dialects. The phonological features of the Heyang dialect are systematically studied, and the historical strata are revealed. Diverse historical strata exist in the current system of the Heyang dialect. In the Heyang dialect, there are phonological features which belong to the stratum of the Northwestern dialect during the Tang and Song dynasties. These features include: the Middle Chinese voiced obstruents are all aspitrated; the -ŋ ending is lost in the colloquial readings of Dang (宕) and Geng (梗) rhyme groups; the division III hekou syllables in Zhi (止) and Yu (遇) rhyme groups merge; and the division III and IV hekou finals of Xie (蟹) rhyme group are xiyin. The initials yi (疑) and wei (微) in the Heyang dialect are pronounced the same as they are in the Zhongyuan yinyun. The kaikou contrasted with the hekou finals in Guo (果) rhyme group when they combined with velar and glottal initials, the division I contrasted with division II finals of Xiao (效) rhyme group in the Heyang dialect. Those phonological phenomena belong to the historical stratum of the Zhongyuan yinyun. The Heyang dialect was further compared with the Meixian dialect, a representive of the Hakka dialect group. The two dialects share so many phonological characteristics. The relation between the two dialects is even closer than that between the Heyang dialect and Mandarin, in some essential aspects, which strongly suggests that the Heyang dialect may be rooted from the Zhongyuan dialects during the Tang and Song dynasty.