Re: Cardinals and ordinals

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 10:47:07AM -0400, Isidora Zamora wrote:
[snip]
> What sorts of ways do various languages have of forming the ordinal
> numerals?  (I'm especially interested in processes that are different from
> the ones that I have seen.)
[snip]

In Ebisedian, cardinals are formed by prefixing the modified noun onto the
quantitive form of the number (see my other mail for an explanation of
quantitive numbers). E.g.:
        _juli'r_        "house"
        _3Pei'_         "5" (qt.)
==>     _3juli'roPei_   "5 houses"

Ordinals are simply the reverse process: prefix the number onto the noun:
        _Peojuli'r_     "the 5th house"


It might be instructive to note that this prefixing process is in fact the
same process used to form compound words. E.g.,
        _bis33'di_      "person"
        _chari'_        "expression"
==>     _bis33'dochari_ "personality" (lit. "human expression")

        _ke'se_         "to cut"
        _ga'ma_         "to call", "to name"
==>     _kesoga'ma_     "to categorize" (cuttingly name; cutting as in
                        analysing, or dividing into categories; so to
                        categorize is to cut-and-name)


T

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