One And A Half

    Following a recent family discussion about changing the proportions
of a favorite recipe, it occurred to me that, in English and Hebrew
(the discussion was in Hebrew), although both langs have simple
words for multiples such as "double, triple", etc, and simple words
for partials such as "half, third", etc, neither lang seems to have
simple words for things like "one and a half". It obviously can be
expressed, but in both langs, AFAIK, it takes more than one word to do it.
    Are there natlangs where there _are_ simple terms for things like
"one and a half"? How about anyone's conlang(s)?

    My conlang, rtemmu, does not have simple words for either
multiples or partials.
    For multiples, one must prefix the number by | yeh |
 (= multiplied by).
Thus:
    wtikuh = the process of being two
    yehwtikuh = the process of being multiplied by two
For  | tikuh | (= the process of being a singularity ),
    yehtikuhyehwtikuh = the process of being multiplied by one which is
                                    then multiplied by two, or loosely,
                                    "a thing which is doubled".
For partials, the affix is | vruhg |.
Thus:  vruhgwtikuh = the process of being divided by two
and
          yehtikuhvruhgwtikuh  =  the process of a being multiplied by
                                             "a singularity divided by two";
                                                ie  "one half of something"

    In order to express  things like "one and a half" ,
rtemmu would put |vrehk| between two numbers.
This would mean that a previouly mentioned amount is to be
multiplied by the first number, plus one divided by the second number.
Thus:
            yehtikuhvruhgwtikuh  =  the process of a being multiplied by
                                             "a singularity divided by two";
                                                ie  "one half of something"
but       yehtikuhvrehkwtikuh  (yeh-tikuh-vrehk-wtikuh)  =
                                            the process of being multiplied
                                            by one and a half



    FWIW, my son and daughter (both native Hebrew speakers) totally
disagreed as to whether the Hebrew equivalent of  "times one and a half "
as applied to recipes, means "add 50% to the original amount" or
"double the original amount and then add 50% of the original amount",
    As I said:  both are native speakers; both disagree. So much for
"native intuition"!  ;-)    (OTOH, maybe one of my kids was trying to
get me to make, for them, even greater portions than I was willing to
do!  :-)     )


Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

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