Abstract
This paper discusses the necessity for a quantitative investigation of qualitative linguistic facts, mentions several conceptions of typology and deals in detail with the classification into vocalic and consonantal languages. The main task of the paper is to attempt to classify languages according to the manner in which they exploit particular kinds of consonants. The exploitation of the sounds of a language is given by the relation of the sounds of the inventory to their relative occurrence in texts. Having examined 23 languages, the author distinguishes, on the basis of the distribution of consonant articulations, three types of language according to the manner of articulation and similarly three types of language according to the place of articulation.
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