San optimality theory solution to disyllabic tone sandhi and neutral tone in yichang dialect

摘要

This paper attempts to apply Optimality Theory to analyze tone sandhi and neutral tone in Yichang dialect. Yichang dialect has six tone sandhi patterns, where yinping+yinping has a different form in verb and noun respectively. Yangping + yangping is more complicated. Yangping came from yangping, yinru and yangru of ancient Yichang dialect and resulted in two forms of tone sandhi. And there are only three kinds of neutral tones, where the word beginning with yinping has no neutral tone. The application of optimality theory to the analysis of tone sandhi and neutral tone in Yichang dialect shows that this theory can succeed in explaining complicated tone sandhis.