Re: EAK numerals (reply-to corrected!)

On 8/29/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> I've put more stuff onto my website about the EAK (Greek without
> inflexions) numerals:
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com/EAK/Numerals.html
>
> I would appreciate feedback
My first thoughts when reading about ordinal numbers were "so you
can't say 'the three placed pigs' since that'll be interpreted as 'the
third pig'?" and "Had you considered το υπ' αριθμό τρία χοίρο 'the
number three pig'?". The latter thought of mine was, no doubt,
influenced partly by Japanese syntax, which has the ordinal marker at
the front followed by regular numbers (dai-san no buta = # 3 'no'
pig).

Also, you write τρία κόσιο καιρό = 300 times, but would it not be
τριακόσιο καιρό with 300 in one word?

As for fractions, I don't know how AG did them but in MG (as you may
know), they are formed as in English, with cardinal number (numerator)
+ ordinal number (denominator), e.g. τρία πέμπτα "three fifths". Which
is probable hard to translate into EAK given the resemblance of
ordinal to cardinal numbers.

Perhaps the Japanese/Chinese(/Korean?) approach might be worth looking
into? They start with the denominator and say things such as "of five
parts, three" ("go-bun no san" in Japanese, "wu fen zhi san" in
Chinese). On the other hand, they express possession as "possessor
PART possessed"; I forget how EAK does it but if the word order is the
other way around (as in MG "to possessed tou possessor"), that might
make the proposed syntax about as (un)natural as "five parts' three"
would be in English. Though I vaguely recall you could switch the
order around if you repeated the article; perhaps that would help? "το
πέντα μερίδιο το τρία" _vel sim_?


Your word δύριοι/δύριο appears to have a breathing, rather than an
accent, on the upsilon. (Twice.)


On another note, I wonder whence comes this pronouncement on your
Nouns page: "If the noun is indefinite, the adjective must precede,
thus ανδρό σοφό is as ungrammatical in ΕΑΚ as *'man wise' is in
English." ?

IIRC, both word orders (ADJ-NOUN and NOUN-ADJ) are licit in Ancient
Greek; what made you forbid one of them? Simplicity in an (for Peanos)
auxlang?

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Reply