ordinal interrogatives

[Edith A Moravcsik]

Hungarian has interrogative ordinals. Here are some data (accent marks =
belong on the preceding vowel):

    hat           'six'
    hat-odik    'sixth'

   nyolc         'eight'
   nyolc-adik  'eighth'

   ha'ny?         'how many?'
   ha'ny-adik?  "how many-eth?" (=3Dwhich numerical position is it in a
   sequence?)

   The -adik/-odik ending is actually two morphemes: -ad/-od is the fraction
   marker:
                 egy-hat-od   "one-six-AFF"   'one-sixth'
                 hat-nyolc-ad "six-eight-AFF" 'six-eighth'

  and -ik  is a suffix on comparative and superlative adjectives to =
  emphasize uniqueness (it must cooccur with the definite article):

                jo'                'good'
                jo-bb            'better'
                a jobb-ik       "the better-AFF" 'the better of the two'
                leg-jo-bb       'best'
                a leg-jo-bb-ik   'the best within a set'

 There is also the word egy-ik "one-AFF", which means 'one of a set'.

 Hungarian also has fractional interrogatives as German does:

               hany-ad?        'what fraction?'

 A 6 ha'nyada a 24-nek?  "the 6 what-fraction the 24-of?"
       'What fraction of 24 is 6?'

Could it be that the reason English does not have "how many-eth" is that
"how many"  is two words and it is strange to use a derviational affix on
a two-word  base?

I find - as Frans Plank does - that, when I point out this "gap" in
English to speakers of English and mimic the missing word as "how
many-eth", it is very hard to even understand for the speakers of English
WHAT this would mean.

Edith M.