ordinal interrogative pronouns

[Gideon Goldenberg]

Ordinal Interrogatives (to Frans Plank)

The first forms that came to my mind were those in Amharic.
The Amharic parallel of German /das wie-viel-t-e Schnitzel/
is /sint-ännya-w Schnitzel/ [/sint/='how many?'; /-(ä)nnya/=
adjectival-ordinal suffix; /-w/=m.sg.def.art.] like /siddist-
ännya-w/ 'the sixth one'; similarly from /man/ 'who': /mann-
innya-w/ 'which one?'. From /yät/ 'where?': /yät-innya-w/
'which one?', from /yih/ 'this': /yih-innya-w/ 'this one';
also from /bäshita/ 'illness': /bäshit-ännya/ 'ill' etc.

By the way, forms like "der wievielte" or "wievielste",
"Den wievielten haben wir heute?", "der wievielte waren
Sie", also "zum vielten Male", have not been left untreated
even in some of the sketchiest German grammars, and are said
to be analogous to the ordinal numbers. The Amharic formation,
however, is far more productive and of a wider range. It well
deserves a description thorougher than was here possible.

                                Yours,      Gideon Goldenberg


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Prof. Gideon Goldenberg
48 Ben-Maimon Avenue
IL-92261 Jerusalem, Israel.
Telephone (972-2-)5665135
Fax (972-2-)5634891
<msgidgol at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>
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