Abstract
This study examines three varieties of the Taiwanese Southern Min dialect in Hualian: Hualien City, Juisui and Fuli. Firstly, we discovered that differences in sound variation occur mostly in the ＂Zhen^1/Zhen^1 literary〈箴箴_文〉＂ rhyme group, the word ＂Huan^2 還＂ and the lower register entering tone. Moreover, the following trends appear in all three dialect areas: the sound change pattern of [dz]＞[l]; a trend toward vernacular and classical reading differences for the ＂Ju^1/Ju^1〈居居〉＂ rhyme group; the phoneme /o/ developing into [ɔ]; and the lower register entering tone with [-p], [-t] and [-k] endings is trending toward becoming a mid-falling tone [32]. As for the Juisui dialect, the glottal stop ending in the lower entering tone is lost, with the tone changing to a mid-level tone [33], thus merging with the yang departing mid-tone. This paper applies the theory of structural diffusion to explain the [dz]＞[l] shift as well as the differences in the evolution of lower entering tone with different endings. In addition, we use the catalytic evolution theory and the categories of the international vowel system to explain the evolution of vowels in Hualien.