Re: Cardinals and ordinals

Isidora Zamora wrote:
> How widespread is this phenomenon?
Pretty common.  Tho, as far as I know, Japanese forms all ordinals
regularly, with (dai-)number(-ban)(-me), with any of those optional, so
that "first" can be _daiichibanme_ (one = ichi), _daiichiban_,
_ichiban_.  I think there are some restrictions on which can be dropped,
but I'm not sure.  At any rate, first, second, etc. are formed reguarly.

However, _ichiban_ also has an additional meaning of "most", with
adjectives, e.g., _ii_ = "good", _ichiban ii_ = "best", and with nouns
"favorite, best".

Uatakassi does not inflect cardinal numbers.  To make ordinal numbers,
inflections are added to the cardinal numbers.  E.g., _tipita taa_
(woman one) = "one woman", "first woman" would be _tipita tita_, with
the gender prefix ti- added to the number _ta_.  The reason that the
first example had _taa_ is a requirement that all content words be at
least two morae in length, hence, _ta_, with no affixes, must be
lengthened to _taa_.  It's a perfectly regular sound change.

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