Teens and Twenties

[David Mead]

Hi,

As long as we're talking about the typology of 
number systems, I thought I would mention the 
case of Napu in Central Sulawesi, which mostly 
has a straightforward decimal system with 
reflexes of almost all the "regular" PMP forms, 
but has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 4+1, 4+2, 4+3, 4+4 system 
for counting days (one day from now, two days from now, etc.)  .

I'll quote perhaps a bit more extensively than is 
needed from: Wesseldijk, J. W. 1923. De 
telwoorden in het Napoesch, met medewerking van 
Dr. N. Adriani [Numerals in Napu, with editing by 
Dr. N. Adriani]. Mededeelingen van wege het 
Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap 67:59-64, 
141-164.  But I will try and highlight the revelant portions.

My own take on how this situation might have 
developed historically runs as follows:
(a) staring point was reflexes of 
Malayo-Polynesian forms 1 through 10, along with 
a system of temporal adverbs for counting days 
also based on these numerals for three and above 
(see my squib in Oceanic Linguistics 40:167-176)
(b1) reflex of *epat 'four' replaced by iba
(b2) knowledge of higher temporal adverbs above 
'four days from now' was lost in Napu (as has happened also in other languages)
(c)  changes (b1) and (b2) (perhaps in the 
reverse order) led to the derivational connection 
between ordinal numerals and temporal adverbs being lost/broken/severed
(d)  as the need arose for being able to specifiy 
higher than 'four days from now', they innovated 
4+1, 4+2, 4+3 and 4+4 as a new system

Well, enough said, on to the data.  If anyone 
would like more than what I've quoted below, 
write me personally and I'd be glad to send you a 
translation of the entire article.

Yours,

David

================================================

/p. 59/
The ordinal numbers [in Napu] are:
isa ‘one’; dua ‘two’; talu ‘three’; iba ‘four’; 
lima ‘five’; ini ‘six’; pitu ‘seven’; ualu 
‘eight’; hahio ‘nine’; hampulo ‘ten’; hampulo 
(hai) isa ‘eleven’; hampulo (hai) dua ‘twelve’; 
hampulo (hai) talu ‘thirteen’; rompulo ‘twenty’; 
rompulo hai isa ‘twenty-one’; rompulo hai ini 
‘twenty-six’, etc.; talu pulona ‘thirty’; iba 
pulona ‘forty’; pitu pulona ‘seventy’; hangatu 
‘hundred’;  rongatu ‘two hundred’; talu atuna 
‘three hundred’, etc.; hasobu ‘one thousand’; 
rosabu ‘two thousand’; talu sabuna ‘three 
thousand’, etc.; hariwu ‘ten thousand’; roriwu 
‘twenty thousand’; talu riwuna ‘thirty thousand’, 
etc.; hauu ‘hundred thousand’; rouu ‘two hundred thousand’.
Still further I have heard: hatai for ‘million’; 
hamparapa ‘ten million’; haingu ‘hundred million’; hameliu ‘billion’.
Isa, the word for ‘one’, is exclusively used with 
counting.  Next to this occurs hadua, which will 
be discussed with the “numeral auxiliaries”, the 
nouns which are compounded with a number to become measure words.
/p. 60/
The Napu numerals one through ten are the 
generally used Malayo-Polynesian numerals.  The 
following is to be remarked concerning the form.
Isa, iba and ini exhibit the vowel i in place of 
the schwa: they stand for sa, ba(t), and n 
(m).  Talu, from t lu, has a, the regular reflex of the schwa in Napu.
Dua exhibits d as onset; in compounds one 
encounters ro, shortened from rua, e.g. rompulo 
‘twenty’; rongatu ‘two hundred’; roogu ‘two 
pieces’, etc.  The regular form for ‘two’ in Napu 
should be rua; the initial consonant falls under 
the R L D rule, the typical form of which should 
be r in Napu, e.g. impira ‘when’, Javanese, etc. 
pira, Toba Batak piga; Bisayan pila; ihira 
‘they’, Javanese sira, Tagalog sila, Toba Batak 
–sida; pare ‘rice in the husk’, Javanese pari, 
Malay padi, Toba Batak page; puru ‘gall, gall 
bladder’, Malay amp du, Javanese amp ru, Toba 
Batak pogu.  However, there are also a number of 
cases in Napu in which the R L D sound is d; e.g. 
daa ‘branch’, Malay dahan; dui ‘thorn’, Malay 
duri, Javanese ri; (ha)dingi ‘hear’, Malay d 
ngar, Javanese rungu.  Besides, the alternation 
between d and r is so usual, that the appearance 
of dua and rua next to each other in the same language is unsurprising.
In iba ‘four’ the b is irregular; one expects 
ipa, from ipat, from pat.  This iba is also 
peculiar to Besoa and Bada, and to Leboni.  An 
intentional deformation of an original ipa is not 
to be considered; in Napu there is no word ipa, 
which for one or another reason should have been 
avoided.  The most likely explanation is that 
Napu must have originally had a form of the 
numeral with prenasalized p, such as e.g. Malay 
mpat, Palu ampa, Mori ompa, etc.  Through 
prenasalization the p must have become b, as in 
e.g. Tolaki and Mekongga omba.  From this imba 
must iba then have originated.  Apart from that, 
the voicing of a voiceless prenasalized stop is 
not regular in Napu; in Parigi this is indeed the case.
/p. 61/
The second form of the numeral four, namely 
pata­which occurs in compounds in most of the 
other Torajan languages, Javanese, Makasarese, 
Bugis, Mandar, Mori, Tomini and still a number of 
other languages (Bare’e patampuyu ‘forty’, next 
to opompuyu; patambuya ‘four months’, next to 
opombuya)­does not occur as such in Napu.
For that matter, in Napu only the numerals ‘one’ 
and ‘two’ are used in compounds.  Nevertheless 
the form pata is known to me in Napu, namely it 
is used in the counting of days with temporal 
adverbs, e.g. kahalo ‘tomorrow’, naipua ‘day 
after tomorrow’, naitalu ‘three days from now’; 
naipata ‘four days from now’.  If one counts 
further, then follows: naipata-kahalo, 
naipata-naipua, naipata-naitalu, 
naipata-naipata.  Bare’e also employs the form 
naipata ‘after the day after tomorrow’.

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