# dva tisíce; sedm tisíc



## djwebb1969

dva tisíce - is tisíce genitive singular or nominative plural? (see dva miliony to understand the question)
sedm tisíc - is tisíc nominative singular? Why not genitive plural (sedm tisíců) (see sedm set to understand the question).


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## djwebb1969

I've identified sedm tisíc as the main exception. It seems 2, 3 and 4 are followed by the nominative plural, and 5 and up by the genitive plural, so why not sedm tisíců?


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## Giordi89

1-4 tisíce, 5-10 tisíc. There is never tisíců, so it is not only the case of 7 tisíc as a main exception. But tisíců exists in phrasal contexts, but only when you not put a particular number (e.g. Without thousands of people = Bez tisíců lidí). I believe that is something hard to explain why it works this way. 7 tisíců sounds rather wrong to me in any case. Many students here, on the other hand, make a mistake by writting 5 millions instead of million for example. Also, it has no clear explanation for us (at least I believe).


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## djwebb1969

Giordi89 said:


> 1-4 tisíce, 5-10 tisíc. There is never tisíců, so it is not only the case of 7 tisíc as a main exception. But tisíců exists in phrasal contexts, but only when you not put a particular number (e.g. Without thousands of people = Bez tisíců lidí). I believe that is something hard to explain why it works this way. 7 tisíců sounds rather wrong to me in any case. Many students here, on the other hand, make a mistake by writting 5 millions instead of million for example. Also, it has no clear explanation for us (at least I believe).



[I agree "five millions" is wrong, but there are native speakers, eg Gordon Brown the former prime minister, who used to say "ten billions". I find younger English people have started saying "two pounds" (£2) instead of "two pound". These are all units of measurement: two pound (money or weight), two stone (a unit of weight, contrasting with "two stones", which is two pebbles), two foot (a unit of length, contrasting with "two feet", the appendages at the end of one's legs), two hundred, two thousand, two million, two billion, two trillion. These are all standard English. Some dialects extend the principle to "two year ago" (Yorkshire English for "two years ago") and "two mile away" (Yorkshire English for "two miles away").]

I'm thinking that *sedm tisíc *may be the fossilised remnant of a previous feminine *tisíca* (as Russian has a feminine tysjača)? In that case, it would be genitive plural, albeit a fossilised form that doesn't appear to be genitive plural derivable from the current nominative singular *tisíc*. This is just creative thinking on my part.


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## bibax

Tisíc is indeed an old genitive plural form.

However the form tisíců doesn't offend me. Sedm tisíců is also correct.


> Nakonec řekl Pán Eliášovi: „Zachovalť jsem pak v Izraeli *sedm tisíců*, jichžto všech kolena neskláněla se Bálovi, a jichžto všech ústa nelíbala ho“...
> 
> ..._"Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."_


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## djwebb1969

bibax said:


> Tisíc is indeed an old genitive plural form.
> 
> However the form tisíců doesn't offend me. Sedm tisíců is also correct.



Thank you - I think this one tisíc form confused me with all the rest of the numbers - until I realised tisíc was the odd one out (and then miliony and sta become comprehensible). I see you quoted from the Bible - which may have calcified forms. 

Do you agree that tisíc was once feminine - like the Russian cognate word? - and that maybe its nominative singular was tisíca?


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## bibax

In Protoslavic the word for 1000 was either masculine and feminine. 

OCS: *tysęšta* (fem.);
Russian: *тысяча* (fem.);
Old Czech: *tisúc* (masc.), the feminine form **tisúca* is not attested;
Polish: *tysiąc* (masc.);


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## djwebb1969

OK, I think sedm tisíc and similar are best learned as exceptions.


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