Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to compare Sino-Annamtite and Chinese Min-Nan dialect (Xiamen). Comparing Sinno-Annamite with Min-Nan dialect in Xiamen, I find out these four interesting points. First, following Professor Chang Guang Yu’s (1989) discovery of chain-shift (drag-chain) relations between Xiamen Southern Min (XSM) and Haikou Southern Min, I found that Sino-Annamite and XSM also have a chain-shift relation. Both Haikou dialect (spoken in Hainan islands) and Sino Annamite share a number of sound changes: p > □, t > □, s > t, ts > t. How these similarities have come about is an intriguing issue that is to be addressed through a substratum theory assuming that the aborigines on the Hainan Island spoke a language similar to Vietnamese. Second, there are numerous resemblances between Sino-Annamite and Southern Min Chinese. The latter makes a distinction between literary and colloquial pronunciations. To be more precise, it is the literary form of Southern Min Chinese that is closer to Sino-Annamite. The reason behind is that both have ultimately derived from Tang Koine - a standard language based on the Chang’an dialect, then the imperial hub, which spread throughout China and its neighbors like Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Third is the phenomenon of Chongniu in ancient Chinese which has reflexes in Sino-Annamite, i.e., ancient Chinese plosive bilabial sound (幫母) corresponds to [b] and [t] while nasal bilabial sound (明母) corresponds to [m] and [z] or [j] in Sino-Annamite. Last, again based on the research of Professor Chang Kuang Yu (2009), it can be assumed that [□] in Sino-Annamite is the reflection of the Chinese apical vowel, which also proves that Chinese may have spread to Vietnam in the end of Tang and the beginning of Song Dynasty. This point can be considered one major contribution of this thesis because it has not been mentioned before. As the scope of comparison widens, more and more questions keep coming to the fore. Among other things, Sino-Annamite resembles the Cantonese dialect in some aspects of the final system. This issue, along with other issues encountered in Min and Chinese historical phonology, is briefly addressed in this preliminary study of comparative phonology.