[[alternative]]On Voiced Initials in Huizhou Dialects

[[abstract]]The voiced initials in Huizhou dialects are devoiced completely just like most of other Chinese dialects. There seem to be two different strata found in Huizhou dialects: aspirates and nonaspirates. In this paper we have stated the majority of the reflexs of the voiced stops and affricates in most Huizhou dialects are aspirates. However, we find both in Xiuning (1^^) and Tunxi (ffiSi), which are said to be the core of Huizhou region,without clear conditions. This division into aspirates and nonaspirates does not correlate with any known distinction in Ancient or in Archaic Chinese. It is caused by respective contact of two different types of dialects in different periods: (D Wu dialects, and ?Hakka-Gan dialects. We assume the nonaspirates to be the earlier stage in Huizhou dialects, basing our argument on the descriptions we found in the literature three hundred years ago. The Hakka-Gan immigrations into southern China brought aspirates down and exerted an influence on many southern dialects such as Xiang, and Wu. That Huizhou dialects originate from Wu dialects is proposed in this paper. That is to say, Huizhou dialects and Wu dialects were of the same type before Hakka-Gan immigrants came to southern China. This is why the majority of the reflexs of the voiced stops and affricates in most Huizhou dialects are aspirates and both types can be found unpredictably in f^Sp and ffigli dialects. The behavior of voiced stops and affricates in Jiangwan (tES) is quite different from that in Wu, Hakka-Gan or other Huizhou dialects, having aspirates as reflexs in most entering (or ju-) tone and nonaspirates in other tones (IfeM and f|HS are exceptions). That the distributions of aspirates and nonaspirates can be roughly divided by tones indicates that this might be a conditioned-change at the first sight, which is a sharp contrast to other Hui-zhou dialects discussed above. That the nonaspirates in nonentering tones are treated as the earlier stage in this dialect is obviously true, just like in other Huizhou dialects; what is the story about those aspirates in entering tone? We view the nonaspirates as the earlier, and the aspirates then become the later stage resulting from dialects contact. This hypothesis coincides with that we made for other Huizhou dialects: the nonaspirates are earlier than aspirates. Key Words: Huizhou dialects, voiced initials, (non) aspirates.[[fileno]]JA01_1996_p29