Re: Tentative Ebisedian number system

H. S. Teoh scripsit:

> But getting back to my original point---the type of number-modification I
> was referring to is by compounding: you stick the radix of the noun onto
> the word for the number. So you'd get compounds like "the horsey
> threeness", i.e., the threeness peculiar to the horses, for "three
> horses"; or the "housey twenty-seven-ness", the twenty-seven-ness that is
> very houselike, referring to the fact that this particular instance of
> being twenty-seven is the twenty-seven of those twenty-seven houses.
I think it's misleading to write (and think) "threeness", "twenty-sevenness".
Rather it should be "threesome", "twenty-sevensome".  English has words
like duo/pair, trio, quartet, quintet for the first few members of this
series, although vigintiseptet is probably too far out.  Nevertheless,
this clearly names a *collection* rather than an *abstraction*, which is
what you want here.  Threeness would be the *property* or *quality*
of being three, rather than a concrete collection of size 3.

ObRant:  I blenched yesterday to read of three women as a
"triumvirate"!

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

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