Re: Types of numerals; bases in natlangs.

Mark J. Reed wrote:
>On 1/14/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> >
> > There's also the yet more efficient Knuth's Extended Myriadic system,
>which
> > is strictly base 10 but new words for powers of 10 are added only when
> > unavoidable. That is, 10^3 is just ten hundreds and doesn't need a name
>on
> > its own; 10^4 is myriad, 10^8 myllion, and then 10^16 either byllion
>(short
> > count) or mylliard (long count)
>
>What constitutes "unavoidability" for a new word?  It seems like you
>could go on indefinitely with ten, ten tens, ten tens of tens, ten
>tens of tens of tens, etc.
Those can get confusingly long, and probably also ambiguous depending on the
language (is "fmof fmof fmof fmof fmof" 10010 or 1100?) Then again, other,
more syntactically limited languages might run into problems already with
expressing "ten hundred myriads", so you do have a sound point there.

John Vertical

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