There are a good many fallingrisingtone words in Guanzhong speech which don’t conform to either the old or the current corresponding phonetic rules, of which most are from old fallingtone and fallingrisingtone fully voiced words. The minority of these exceptional words are identical with those in Putonghua, but the majority agree in Guanzhong speech. Several reasons contribute to such exceptional fallingrisingtone words, including effects of variable tones in liaison and neutralized tones on pronunciations of individual words, effects of the value of falling tone in Putonghua, effects of varieties of tones in Putonghua and remnant from old Guanzhong speech. Through analysis of the abovementioned reasons, this paper puts forward the following two concepts for reference, that is, “debugging fossilized sound variation” and “temporarilytransferring fossilized sound variation”.

Guangzhong speech; fallingrising tone; exceptional words; variable tones in liaison