Inflected Numerals

[BARudes at aol.com]

In Catawba numerals may be predicated through the addition of the independent
modal suffix /-re:/, e.g., n'aNpari 'two', n'aNparire: 'there are two'; this
alone is not suprising since almost any root in Catawba can be predicated by
adding the independent modal.  Whether the predicated numeral can be
inflected for person is another question.  From examples such as
hiN?r'a?hire: |hiN?+ra?+hi+re:| "this+with+third person singular
subject+independent modal" 'and the together, with this one' (Speck 1934, p.
12) I would assume that it is possible to add
personal inflections to a construction like n'aNparire: to produce, for
example, *n'aNpari?a:re: 'we are two, the two of us', but I have never seen
such a form in the data I have examined.

On a side note, higher numerals in the Northern Iroquoian languages are
clearly verbal in origin and even the lower numerals exhibit some verbal
behavior.  For example, they can occur with the progressive aspect suffix
which otherwise occurs only with verbs, e.g., Tuscarora n'e:kti: 'two',
nekti:h'a:?nye? 'two-by-two' (compare: r'eN:tih 'he makes it', reNtih'a:?nye?
'he is going along making it').  However, numerals in the Northern Iroquoian
languages cannot occur with personal inflections.