Re: Slavic numerals (was Re: introduction)

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:37:03 +0200, Y.Penzev <yitzchaq@...> wrote:

>Re: Tony Hogard on Thursday, November 29, 2001 11:11 PM
>
>> 'Course, if it's 2, 3, or 4 books in Russian,  it takes genitive
>> singular.
With *nominative* (and accusative, when identical) of the numeral; in
other cases, the noun and the numeral agree in case:

NOM: dva (nom) chasá (counting form)
GEN: dvukh (gen) chasóv (gen.pl.)
DAT: dvum (dat) chasám (dat.pl.)

>> Czech has a similar division, but I'm not familiar with other Slavic
>> languages.  Is this some remnant of dual number?
It's thought to be one, at any rate.

>I really don't know the origine, but it's NOT a genetive singular!
>With numerals 2, 3 and 4 Russian and Ukrainian use so called "counting
>form". In many cases it COINCIDES with G.sn., but it is really not felt
like
>it. It sounds for a native ear more like Nominative plural with shift of
>accented syllable, e.g.:
>
>    kozá 'she-goat' :: kózy 'she-goats' :: dve kozý 'two she-goats'
...where it still coincides with Gen.Sg.; but it's different in some
other words. Grammars mostly cite _shag_ 'step' and _chas_ 'hour':

dva shagá (vs. Gen.Sg. shága)
dva chasá (vs. Gen.Sg. chása)

What is really weird, _shag_ and _chas_ behave differently in my dialect,
with words like _chétvert'_ 'quarter' and _poltorá_ 'one and a half':

poltorá chasá
- but:
poltorá shága

...and I cannot recall more nouns with diferentiated counting form to
figure out why. Yitzik?

>For numerals more than 5 they really use genetive plural:
>
>    p`at` koz 'five she-goats'
Again, only in Nom. and Acc.=Nom.; so,

DAT    pjatí (dat) kózam (dat.pl.)
INSTR  pjatjú (instr) kózami (instr.pl.)

I've never heard of so weird a system outside Slavic languages :)

>+ ...I heard that in Bulgarian the 'counting form' is used with ALL
numerals
>(but '1'), and in Polish they use a special form of numeral (!) for purely
>male groups...
Yes, they do.


Basilius

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