twoth

[Wilson Gray]

So, in Esperanto, one asks "how many-th?"? Why? How is the answer
constructed? I don't get it. Am I being stupid, here/ Or do i merely
lack sufficient background - any - in Esperanto?

And, WRT "ki," you mean "Romance," not "I-E," right?

-Wilson



On 1/24/08, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: twoth
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Esp-o word needs no specific analogical etymology. There's a whole grid
> of function words, generalizing from patterns like English
> "here/there/where", "__/then/when", "__/that/what":
>
>    - begin with 'ki' for relative or interrogative (definite I-E bias
>    there), 'ti' for demonstrative, 'i' for indefinite, 'neni' for negative,
>    'c^i' for universal (c-circumflex, [tS], English "ch")
>    - add 'u' for individual, 'e' for place, 'a' for quality, 'om' for
>    quantity, ... nine in all
>
> So kiom 'how many/much', nenie 'nowhere', c^iu 'everyone, every one' (+/-
> animate), tia 'that kind (of), such' and so on. And since you can
> productively add the appropriate POS ending to any stem, kiom + the
> adjective ending -a -> kioma 'how many-th'.
>
> m a m
>
> On Jan 24, 2008 9:47 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > At 9:28 AM -0500 1/24/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
> > >How common is it in natural languages to have an ordinal interrogative
> > word?
> > >Esperanto has "kioma", derived by adjectivizing "kiom"  'how much/many"?
> > >
> > >m a m
> >
> > Presumably this arose by analogy with French and
> > other Romance languages (the main source for
> > Esperanto).  I note 106 google hits for
> > _combieni=E8me_ with this meaning and derivation,
> > as in
> >
> > Ca fait le combienieme sujet sur le genre?
> >
> > Mettons, que pour la j'sais pas combieni=E8me fois,
> > j'ai utilis=E9 le bouton "=E9diter ce message" au
> > lieu de "r=E9pondre =E0 ce message"
> >
> > c'est ton combienieme match?
> >
> > And the "less logical" but "more correct" form,
> > _combienti=E8me_ (with epenthetic -t-) gets 2250
> > hits (e.g. "Bill Clinton est le combienti=E8me
> > pr=E9sident des =C9tats-Unis?" and an appearance in
> > this blog on the topic:
> > http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-418730.html
> > (Respondents to this blog contribute
> > interrogative ordinals in Swedish, German,
> > Finnish, Turkish, Tagalog, etc.)
> >
> > LH
> >
> > >
> > >On Jan 17, 2008 8:48 PM, Bill Le May <blemay0 at mchsi.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>  > -----Original Message-----
> > >>  > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > Behalf
> > >>  > Of Joel S. Berson
> > >>  > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:42 AM
> > >>  > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > >>  > Subject: Re: twoth
> > >>
> > >>  > Thank heaven this is not likely to lead to oneth and thirdth.  (If =
> I
> > >>  > come across speakers of these, I won't stand too close.)
> > >>
> > >>  In childhood I remember saying "what-th". Wondering the day of the
> > month,
> > >>  I
> > >>  would ask a parent "what day is it" and inevitably get an answer like
> > >>  "Wednesday". Frustrated, I'd reply, "No, I mean today is that what-th
> > of
> > >>  January?"
> > >>
> > >>  No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > >>  Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > >>  Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.6/1229 - Release Date:
> > 1/17/2008
> > >>  11:12 AM
> > >>
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