Friday, October 29, 2021

Detail #421: A Quirky Numeral Structure

Consider a language with singulars, duals and plurals. The language has a rather strict distinction between mass and count nouns, and explicitly marks different types of individuated, specific, indefinite, etc references.

Now, this entirely eliminates the need for the numerals one and two, as you would never say 'two bikes', you'd say bike-dual. You would never say 'there are two of them', you'd say 'they-plur are they-dual'.

This of course leads to problems when counting higher numbers. You have nothing to put after 'twenty' or 'thirty' when you want to form 21 and 22.

Twenty bike-SINGULAR = 21 bikes.
Twenty bike-DUAL = 22 bikes.

Probably unlikely.


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