Typology
- comparison of languages based on their formal structure
- no historical connections
- only the analysis of the present state of the language
Types of typology: syntactic, phonetic..
Phonological typology
Syllabic language - every syllable is a morpheme
Morpheme - shortest sound which still has a meaning
Phonetic typology:
Tonal language
Tone - a melody of the voice, in which a syllable is pronounced and which has the same importance as any letter of the syllable
Historical division of Chinese
Old Chinese
1000 B.C. – 3rd/4th cen A.D.
- probably no tones – they developed form suffixes
- probably not a syllabic language
