Friday, July 26, 2013

Detail #50: a type of numeral

At times, trying to come up with numerals different from the normal ordinals, cardinals, groups-of-N, and distributives and whatnots is a thing I try my hand at, but seldom manage.

It hit me that one natural context for numerals is when discussing time, and it could very well be possible for a language to have specific forms for the numerals for N:th day (or even N:th general unit of time), or for N days, to such an extent that the time unit generally can be left out.

Imagine
four-TIME-[some oblique case, plural]: on four days
 four-TIME-[some oblique case, singular]: on the fourth day (of the month)
four-TIME-[some other oblique case, singular]: four days from the time inferred from the context
four-TIME-[some other oblique case, plural]: every fourth day

Meanwhile, if the language treats "many" and "how many" as numerals, in giving them ordinal forms as well, this could provide some further cool stuff. Finally, diminutives would possibly be used to form, say, hours and minutes or some analogous time units.

I would further like for it to lack the nominative and accusative, so that talking of four units of time as a subject or objects requires normal ordinal or cardinal numerals.

This idea might enter Tatediem.
 

 

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