ordinal interrogative pronouns

[Frans Plank]

Ordinal Interrogatives

When studying a new language, nobody would be surprised to encounter
(distinct or also syncretic) interrogative pronouns for persons (who?),
things (what?), places (where? whence? whereto? ...), times (when? since
when? until when? ...), manners/instruments/circumstances (how?),
reasons/causes (why?), purposes (what for?), quantities (how much/many? how
often?), qualities (which?), kinds (what kind of?), and maybe a few further
more or less salient ontological categories.

But would you be surprised to be faced with ORDINAL interrogative pronouns?

I would, though I know them from my native tongue--though it was only
yesterday that I was really made aware of them, when my colleague Susanne
Trissler gave a departmental seminar on their (minimalist) syntax.  They
look like this, ignoring much of the minimalist architecture:

Das wie-viel-t-e Schnitzel frisst du jetzt schon?
the how-many-ORD-ACC.SG.NEUT.WEAK schnitzel are you devouring now?
	--	Das sechs-t-e / x-t-e / so-und-so-viel-t-e [Schnitzel]
		the six-ORD-ACC.SG.NEUT.W / x-ORD-ACC.SG.NEUT.W /
		so-and-so-many-ORD-ACC.SG.NEUT.W [schnitzel]

Wie-viel-t-er bist du geworden?
how-many-ORD-NOM.SG.MASC.STRONG have you become
(in which position did you end up?)
	--	Fuenf-t-er / Letz(-)t-er
		five-ORD-NOM.SG.MASC.S / last(-)ORD-NOM.SG.MASC.S

Well, they look like they are formed from the manner interrogative pronoun
(wie) plus the prototypical multal quantifier (viel) plus the suffix -t
which derives ordinal from cardinal numerals.  (With nominal cardinals the
ordinalizing suffix would be -st:  hundert-st 'hundred-th', million-st
'million-th', dutzend-st 'dozen-th'.)  It strikes me as eminently
reasonable to employ ordinal morphology for this purpose:  this is what the
corresponding answer expressions are also carrying.  What seems to me
rather more ingenious is to use the quantitative interrogative phrase 'how
many' as the base to which to add the ordinal suffix.  But then, what else
would be more appropriate than something quantitative?

You might want to know that the superlative suffix on adjectives in German
is somewhat similar to the ordinal suffix, presumably not without semantic
reason:  -(e)st (aelt-est 'old-est', schoen-st 'beautifull-est').  The
superlative of the multal quantifier is suppletive, though:

	viel	-	mehr	-	meist
	'much/many	more		most'

Thus, if the ordinal interrogative were based on the superlative it would
be *wiemeist.
Also, ordinary adjectives in the superlative form do not seem to combine
with wie to form corresponding interrrogatives, no matter how sensible such
questions would be:

*Eure wie-hoech-st-e Niederlage war das 0:9 gestern gegen die Kickers?
*your how-high-SUPER-NOM.SG.FEM.WEAK defeat was the 0:9 yesterday against
the Kickers?
	--	Die vier-t-hoech-st-e / *vier-t-e.
		the four-ORD-high-SUPER-NOM.SG.FEM.WEAK /
		*four-ORD -NOM.SG.FEM.WEAK

For completeness, let me mention that there also is a corresponding
FRACTIONAL interrogative:

Ein Wie-viel-tel vom Gulasch hast du schon gefressen?
a how-much-FRACT of the goulash have you already devoured?
	--	Die Haelf-te / Drei Fuenf-tel.
		the half-FRACT / three five-FRACT

It's straightforward fractional derivational morphology (-te, -tel, in turn
grammaticalized from TEIL 'part' a long time ago) that is being used for
this interrogatives, which is somewhat more nominal than the ordinal one,
though.

Now, after a day of intensive investigation I can report, first, that
ordinal interrogatives are attested not only in German, but also in Dutch
(p.c. from my colleague next door, Sibrand van Coillie).

They are pretty similar to their German counterparts, and who knows whether
they have not plainly been borrowed:

de hoe-veel-ste schnitzel
the how-many-? schnitzel

Perhaps just to be a little different, our neighbours are using the suffix
here which is generally used for forming the superlative:

de oud-ste schnitzel
the old-SUPER schnitzel

Their ordinal suffix has the allomorphs -de and -ste, and their
distribution differs from that in German, with -ste not employed on basic
numerals other than 'eight':

de vijf-de / tien-de / ... schnitzel
the five-ORD / ten-ORD / ... schnitzel
de twentig-ste / hondred-ste / acht-ste schnitzel
the twenty-ORD / hundred-ORD / eight-ORD schnitzel

Overall, then, the look of ordinal interrogatives is perhaps slightly more
superlative than ordinal, at least by comparison with German.

Second, I can report that innumerable languages from all over the world
appear to be lacking  ordinal interrogatives.  The list is available on
request;  it's too long to append to this message.  Suffice it to say that
English is on it.  What is so easy to ask for Susanne, myself, and Sibrand
was not only found unspeakable, but almost unthinkable by many of my
foreign consultants.

Before turning to books over the weekend for further investigation, I
wonder whether LINGTYPists are aware of yet further languages boasting this
category of interrogatives.  And perhaps real work has been done on them
too, however minimal, in which case I'd greatly appreciate references.


frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de