Lexical diffusion in sound change in the dialect of an immigrant community in Dongfeng Village of Linyi City: A preliminary exploration

Abstract

Dongfeng Village of Linyi City in Shandong Province, PRC, is an immigrant village formed in the 1960s as part of community relocation from Mengyin County of Shandong Province due to the building of a reservoir. This paper first provides a comprehensive description of the sound changes in the Dongfeng dialect, and has identified nine major differences between the Dongfeng dialect and the surrounding local dialect in syllable initials, finals and tones. Drawing on the theory of lexical diffusion, it then explores the pattern of spreading of sound changes from the perspectives of word frequency, competing changes and residues. As a tentative conclusion, it is posited that the sound changes in Dongfeng village over a span of 40 years are the results of the competition of the dual influence from the local dialect and Mandarin. Lexical diffusion of the various types of sound changes is not only related to word frequency, but is also sensitive to word class. The word frequency effects are significant only within word classes.