ordinal interrogatives

[Marcel Erdal]

Nobody seems to have mentioned (Modern) Hebrew as yet. Hebrew forms
ordinal interrogatives from the construct state of the numerals with the
suffix -i, preceded by the definite article ha-, for 2-10 (incl.),
23-29,  33-39 ... 93-99, 103-10 (incl.), 123-129 etc..
For 11-22, 30-32 ... 100-102, 111-122 and so forth, however, it uses the
cardinal alone, again preceded by the definite article.
The ordinal interrogative is ha-kama, consisting (like 11-22 etc.) of
the definite article + 'how many, how much'. Note that the word 'how
many/much' is not otherwise preceded by the definite article, so that no
confusion can arise. In fact, no other interrogatives other than the
ordinal interrogative are ever linked to this definite article, so that
this ha- should probably, by itself, be considered to be a marker of
ordinality beside being the definite article. Come to think of it, the
definite article seems to be pretty closely linked to ordinals in
French, German, English, Danish, Spanish, Modern Greek etc. as well.
Sincerely,
Marcel Erdal

--
Prof. Dr. Marcel Erdal
Dept. of Turcology,
FB 11, J.W.Goethe University,
P.O.B. 11 19 32
D-60054 Frankfurt a.M.
Germany.
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