twoth

[Mark Mandel]

F'rex, "It's two o'clock" is "Estas la dua horo", lit. 'It is the second
hour'. So "What time is it?" is "Kioma horo estas?" 'How-many-th hour is
it?' That's by far the commonest way this adj. is used.

No, I-E. At least Slavic also has k- (kto 'who' is all that comes back from
h.s.; maybe also gde 'where'). But I meant the use of the same form for rel.
& interr., not specifically the [k].

m a m

On Jan 24, 2008 11:21 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> > > >>
> > > >>  ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                              -Sam'l Clemens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org