What Possible Pronunciations of 也 exist in Suzhou Dialect? I was looking at old Kunqu opera the other day and was interested by the fact that the singers seemed to be pronouncing 也 as "yi" instead of "ye", for example in http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/sAj9FgdRmK8:

好天气也 (00:12)
好困人也 (14:50)


Both instances sound like yi, not "ye3" as in Mandarin (it also struck me as such in a different recording, which I can't find online right now).  Since the pronunciation in Kunqu is supposed to be based on an old form of Suzhou dialect, I'm curious whether 也 can still be pronounced like "yi" in more modern forms of that dialect, and if so - does Suzhou dialect include some sound like "yi" that happens to be used as a termination particle?  

If so, it might be an intriguing case of a supposed signature of Classical Chinese - using 也 to terminate a clause -  being present in vernacular Chinese as well.  Of course, I might simply not hearing that it's actual "ye3" in the above, in which case apologies.
Zhang Jiqing singing Kunqu, always a pleasure to listen to.  

The 也 here is the sentence final particle.  It's used quite differently in vernacular literature in the Ming-Qing than it is in classical literature, where it's almost like a copula. The references from 漢語大辭典 are talking about the use of 也 as a loan character for 匜, which is pronounced yi.  This is common in bronze inscriptions ca. 500 BC or earlier, and has nothing to do with the 也 here.

As for pronunciation, after listening to the 2 examples several times, I'd have to say that it's still diphthongized, just like in standard Mandarin. The Kunqu pronunciation is not actually Suzhou 土話. It's like the pronunciation in Peking opera, in the sense that it preserves older facets of Mandarin, but has a definite southern flavor to it. One part of this flavor is that a number of diphthongs are much less like two vowels and are more like a single vowel with a coda, so that the -e coming after i- is less conspicuous; this is strengthened by the fact that its a sentence final particle.  Anyway, I'm sure that its a 也 in these two places. The subtitles are accurate, just copied from the libretto.