ordinal interrogative pronouns
Nicholas Ostler
nostler at CHIBCHA.DEMON.CO.UK
Mon Feb 12 00:10:47 UTC 2001
Two more languages, a bit closer to home for Europeans (and central Asians):
Latin:
QUOTUS - A - UM "which, in order of number".
with adjectival -o~a thematic ending added to indecinable QUOT "how
many";the O is short in both QUOTUS and QUOT.
This ending is conceivably a (back-formed) analysis of the endings
in septimus 7th decimus 10th undecimus 11th ...septemdecimus 17th; cf
sex, septem, decem, undecim, ... septemdecim
But there is no evident regular ordinal suffix in Latin.
Turkish
kaIncI
with ordinal ending - [+hi]nc[+hi] added to ka "how many" - totally regular.
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