Re: EAK numerals

Eugene Oh wrote:
> 2007/5/27, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>:
>
>> > Also, rather like the Malay-Indonesian sa-/ satu = 1, I am adopting EAK
>> > e-/ enó = 1. Therefore, the EAK numerals from 10 to 99 are formed thus:
>> > e-déka = 10; e-déka enó = 11; e-déka dúo = 12; e-déka tría = 13 etc.
>> > dúo déka = 20; dúo déka tétra = 24; dúo déka pénta = 25 etc.
>> > tría déka = 30, tétra déka = 40 etc. up to _ennéa déka ennéa_ = 99.
>>
>> Do 10 and 100 need a prefix at all, in the first place?
>>
>> I'm thinking of German, for example, which has "hundert, zweihundert,
>> dreihundert, etc." -- "einhundert" also exists, but it's not necessary
>> to include "ein". Also, Chinese has no morpheme for "one" in its word
>> for "ten", nor Japanese in its word for "a hundred" (though I think
>> Chinese usually does say explicitly "one hundred").
>>
>> ...hm, my arguments are not particularly good; some languages do have
>> explicit "one", others don't, so either way has good precedent.
>>
Welsh: un deg pedwar (one ten four) = 14    :)

> I think, that given that EAK is after all derived from Greek, it
> should as far as possible follow the Greek way of doing things --
> namely, in this case, to exclude the lexeme for "one" in words like
> "ten" and "hundred".
But the ancient _ (h)ekatón_ (Arcadian _hekoton_) is from *_sem kn=tom_
= one hundred     :)

If we are to keep _kósio_ for 100, it seems to me that _e-kósio_ is
slightly closer to the ancient forms than simple _kósio_ would be. The
alternative is to have _ekató_ or _ekatónta_ which, vis-a-vis the other
hundreds, is irregular. _e-kósio_ seemed a satisfactory compromise to
me, i.e. it makes the whole thing regular and is not too far from the
ancient (and modern) forms.

If one has _e-kósio_, for the reasons I've stated above, then it does
not seem unreasonable to me to have _e-déka_ for the sake of consistency.

--
Ray
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http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
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[WELSH PROVERB]

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