Questions of Chinese

With only 400 discrete syllables, Mandarin manages, through the adroit use of syntax and its four tones, to express all those concepts every modern language needs to articulate. At least I'm pretty sure it does... http://books.google.com/books?id=ChyVgZMAiUoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=questions+of+chinese+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WV95Uq2wCaWGyAGVooDoCw&ved=0CGEQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=questions%20of%20chinese%20language&f=false