Re: Types of numerals

Roger Mills  wrote:
>
>John Vertical wrote:
> > First off, I confess that I not sure if you'll recognize "numeral" as a
> > word for the class of "number words" (never seen it used in that way
> > in English; only Finnish.)
>
>I'm not totally sure what you're getting at here, but-- in Engl., I feel
>that "numeral" refers mainly to the written form of the number, and it
>sounds rather grade-school-ish at that:  "All right, children, write down
>the numeral "five"...." in which case it's simply a synomyn for "number"
>but with rather limited usage.
As I was afraid. Still, nobody seems to know another word for "number
words". Finnish grammar (as taught at high school level) traditionally
distinguishes "numerals" as a part-of-speech of their own, but maybe you
Indo-Europeans don't really need a separate class.


>One does not hear, "There was a _numeral_ of people at the party..."
Nor "Did you see the adjective noun?"
[Unless we're talking about the band with that name. :b]


> > Does any
> > language have ordinals as the unmarked series instead?
>
>Don't know, but it seems somehow counter-intuitive.
I guess. But give me one natlang with no counterintuitive features. :)


> > There are also often a handful of numbers which have an original name in
> > addition to a derived one. Most of the ones I know have been used as
>units
> > of measure (eg. Finnish "tiu" is a unit of 20 eggs), but are there
>others?
>
>Perhaps these: Ml/Indonesian has a non-derived term for "-teen", belas;
>almost all related langs. AFAIK use a combo of ten + unit.  Javanese,
>uniquely AFAIK, has a special term for 20. All other decades, there and in
>AFAIK all related langs., use Unit + ten.  A sub-family in Eastern Indo.
>has special words for "10 ears of grain" and "10 pigs", unrelated to the
>word for 10.  Fijian has: vola 'war canoe', vola-vola '100 war canoes', and
>possibly others of that ilk. (ObConlang: Kash does not yet have such
>things, but ought to....archaic, however; their analogues for dozen/gross
>refer to quantities of ten/hundred resp.)
Yeah, like that. Thanks!
Finnish also has "tikkuri" (10 squirrel hides), "kerpo" (31 lampreys - why
31? I have totally no idea) and borrowals for "dozen" and "gross".


> > Also I might add the golden [ratio]....
>
>The golden is 8:5, right? derived from the Fibonacci series? Kash has
>that--  moyot nakuweyu "Nakuweyu pattern" named after the Gwr version of
>Mr. Fibonacci who first formalized the concept, also called moyot maci <
>Gwr maq dzi "ten five [octal]". But only because I once read a book on
>Fibonacci and got fascinated by the whole idea; the Greeks and all that;
>also it's used in some (rather far-out) stock-market analysis :-))
>
> > and silver ratios (the latter is sqrt(2)) to uwjge...
>
>Please explain more fully. WTF is "uwjge"???? (Is my math. ignorance
>showing, or is that a typo of some sort..........:-)) )
1) The golden ratio (which others have already explained more fully) can be
used to form a "golden" rectangle. It has the property that you can remove a
square from it with the proportions remaining the same. The lesser known
"silver" rectangle, instead, can be cut in half with the proportions (1 to
sqrt(2)) remaining the same. This is actually just the normal A-sized paper.
An alternative definition instead has it remaining the same in proportions
after the removal of a 1x2 rectangle; this produces a related ratio of
1+sqrt(2).
2) uwjge (/'u\wGgE/) is my primary conlang. Being personal/artlang rather
than fictional diachronic, I could just borrow the usual names for pi et al,
but naming them "natively" instead also sounds tempting. And yes, the "freak
typo" outlook of the name is intentional. ;)


>Beyond that, the Kash have a word for "pi"-- onjiyur [on'dZijur] < om
>'basis' + ciyur 'circle', called omi by mathematicians and symbolized with
>the letter "m".  We also have words for the basic geometric figures (no
>solids yet, however), basically "side + (number)".
>
>Was this at all on-topic? :-)))
Of course. Myself, I'm actually lexicalizing 2pi instead (which, from a
mathematical viewpoint, is more logical.)

John Vertical

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