Re: Sound changes causing divergence of ordinals from cardinals

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:01:13 -0500, Chris Peters <beta_leonis@...>
wrote:

> "nihon" = two long, thin objects (pens, trees, neckties);
> "nimai" = two thin, flat objects (pieces of paper, tickets, etc.);
> "nisatsu" = two volumes (books, newspapers, magazines).
> Do any other natlangs do anything "bizarre" like (or unlike) that?
Well, English counts "loaves" of bread, "head" of livestock, and so on.
It's just not native intuition that the count word compounds to the number
word, but I suspect it bonds quite (if not very) tightly to it, probably
as closely as a clitic if not a compound.




Paul