# Declension of cardinal numerals



## Scholiast

Greetings all

A question has arisen in the Latin Forum which has aroused my wider curiosity. Latin numerals _unus_, _duo_ and _tres_ decline. The remainder, mostly, do not (exceptions for multiples of _centum _and _mille_). And in classical Greek the grammar is not dissimilar: εἱς, δύο, τρεῖς, τέσσαρες decline, but πέντε, ἓξ, ἓβδομα κτλ. do not.

Can anyone offer a philological explanation for this apparent oddity—or indeed comparable phenomena in other inflected languages, ancient or modern?

Σ


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## ahvalj

It is believed that the remaining numerals retain the original state of affairs with the lack or declension in earlier Proto-Indo-European. _Four, eight _and _ten_ are usually declined in older IE languages, while _five, six, seven_ and _nine_ do not: perhaps because their auslauts didn’t match any declension pattern.


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## fdb

In Sanskrit all the numbers are declined, but this is perhaps an innovation.


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## Riverplatense

Not an actually «philological explanation», but isn't it understandable that numbers after four, being of less frequent use, are not declined? Of course, a «regular» declension pattern would definitely be thinkable, but languages are very likely to reduce complexity in rarer forms, for self-evident reasons. Besides, if we think of the time in which the numerals systems of the Classical languages were established, wouldn't it be possible that few people (regularly) used those numbers (herein, however, I might be badly wrong)?


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## sotos

In greek there is an indirect way for declination, if needed. e.g. instead of "deca something" you can say "a decada of something", and this _decada_ (and in theory _hexada_, _eikosada, sarantada_ etc) is declined.


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## apmoy70

sotos said:


> In greek there is an indirect way for declination, if needed. e.g. instead of "deca something" you can say "a *decada* of something", and this _decada_ (and in theory _*hexada*_, _*eikosada*, *sarantada*_ etc) is declined.


Which are the ancient 3rd declension feminine nouns that describe a group of persons/things formed from numerals, e.g. *«ἑξάς» hĕk͡sás* (nom. sing.), *«ἑξάδος» hĕk͡sádŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _group of six_, *«δεκάς» dĕkás* (nom. sing.), *«δεκάδος» dĕkádŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _group of ten_, *«εἰκοσάς» e̯ikŏsás* (nom. sing.), *«εἰκοσάδος» e̯ikŏsádŏs* (gen. sing.) --> _group of twenty_ and so on. In MoGr all nouns belonging to the ancient 3rd declension with complicated inflection, have been simplified, and form their nominative by borrowing the stem of the ancient oblique cases (mostly the accusative: ancient acc. *«δεκάδα» dĕkádā* > MoGr fem. nom. sing. *«δεκάδα»* [ðeˈkaða]).


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## Perseas

Riverplatense said:


> Not an actually «philological explanation», but isn't it understandable that numbers after four, being of less frequent use, are not declined?


That is what I thought too.
In addition to this, the first number, which is the commonest, has three different forms, one for each gender, and the biggest variety of endings (i.e. 4 different endings for the masculine & the feminine and 3 endings for the neuter).

εἷς(M), μία(F), ἕν(N) = one
δύο(M/F/N) = two
τρεῖς(M/F), τρία(N) = three
τέτταρες(M/F), τέτταρα(N) = four

Also in German "ein" is declinabe and "zwei" & "drei" are partly declinable.


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## bearded

Perseas said:


> In German..."zwei" & "drei" are partly declinable.


Also ''vier'' and apparently ''hundert'' and ''tausend'',  in fixed idioms (_auf allen vieren, die Stimmen hunderter Menschen..._).

In many Italian dialects the numerals for  ''two'' and ''three'' are still declinable, like in Latin (i.e. thay have a male and a female form). Example in the dialect of Bologna:
One man/two men/three men (in standard Italian _un uomo/due uomini/tre uomini_) = _un ómen/duu ómen/trii ómen_
One woman/two women/three women (''     ''        _una donna/due donne/tre donne) = ona dóna/dåu dóni/trai dóni._


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## Stoggler

Celtic languages also have some numerals that decline according to gender.  Welsh for example has the following:

two: dau (m.) dwy (f.)
three: tri (m.) tair (f.)
four: pedwar (m.) pedair (f.)

In addition, some numbers can lose a consonant sound at the end when they are followed by a noun:

five: pump becomes pum
six: chwech becomes chwe
hundred: cant becomes can

ten, twelve and fifteen: deg, deuddeg and pymtheg become deng, deuggeng and pymtheng before nasals.

Not only that, but being a Celtic language, Welsh has initial consonant mutations under certain grammatical circumstances, and some numerals cause the following noun to undergo such a mutation:

un (one) causes soft mutation of feminine nouns only
dau/dwy causes soft mutation
tri (but not tair) cause aspirate mutation
chwech/chwe causes aspirate mutation (both genders)

And to top it all, some numbers (_pum_, _saith_, _wyth_, _deng_, _deuddeng_, and _pymtheng_) trigger the nasal mutation when used with _blynedd _(year(s)). The part of the number immediately preceding the noun will determine any mutation of the noun.

*all of the above is found more in formal and literary Welsh, modern Spoken Welsh has less rigid rules of mutation.


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## Scholiast

Thanks, Stoggler



Stoggler said:


> Celtic languages also...
> 
> two: dau (m.) dwy (f.)
> three: tri (m.) tair (f.)
> four: pedwar (m.) pedair (f.)



Now I come to think of it, this is not dissimilar (unsurprisingly) to Scots Gaelic.

Cheers,

Σ


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## Perseas

bearded said:


> _auf allen vieren_


In English "on all fours".
There are also some references about "twos" & "threes" on internet.


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## Olaszinhok

bearded said:


> Example in the dialect of Bologna



The dialect of Bologna is one of the most conservative a complicated dialects ever (unpredictable formation of plural nouns, usage of verb tenses) It is the only gallo-romance dialect to preserve the simple past!


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## Scholiast

@Περσέας


Perseas said:


> In English "on all fours".
> There are also some references about "twos" & "threes" on internet.


Yes, and there is the idiom 'at sixes and sevens'. I'm just not sure that this is comparable. 'On all fours' is an elliptical expression for 'On hands and knees'; 'They came in twos and threes' = '...in groups of two and three'. 'Tens of thousands (have been affected by the flooding)', though, and certainly 'hundreds', 'thousands', 'millions' &c. (with 'of'), but we would still say, for example of the Athenian oligarchs of 411 BC 'the Four Hundred'/'the Five Thousand'; or 'the da Vinci was sold for two hundred million pounds'.

Thank you for the thought, though.

Σ


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## bearded

Olaszinhok said:


> The dialect of Bologna is one of the most conservative a_nd_ complicated dialects ever


That's true (but you don't seem to consider Genua, Bari..): however my example only concerned the declension of numerals _two, three _(different male and female forms)_: _a phenomenon that is common to many other Italian dialects. You find it in Milan, in Naples...


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## Olaszinhok

Yes, of course but I was referring to other grammar features too. Unfortunately, it's off-topic in here.


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## berndf

Scholiast said:


> Yes, and there is the idiom 'at sixes and sevens'. I'm just not sure that this is comparable.


In Germanic, there was a full inflection (by gender and case) only for _one, two _and _three_. Gender declension survived for _two _in German until the 18th century. For numbers > 3 there was generally no inflection if when occurring as attributes in front of a noun. There were various inflected forms in different Germanic languages in other positions, i.e. after the noun or in non-attributive use, though many of those seem to be West-Germanic innovations. You might know the German nursery rhyme _Ringel, Ringel, Reihe, sind der Kinder drei*e*_.


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## Olaszinhok

One and two are inflected by gender in Portuguese and Catalan as well:
Portuguese:
um /uma
dois/duas
Catalan:
(u) un/una
dos/dues


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## Riverplatense

bearded said:


> In many Italian dialects the numerals for ''two'' and ''three'' are still declinable, like in Latin (i.e. thay have a male and a female form).



However, I'm not sure if this is a conservative trait. In fact, in Bonvesin we find _tre _‹three, f.› and _tri _‹three, m.›, which is rather an analogy. 



berndf said:


> Ringel, Ringel, Reihe, sind der Kinder drei*e*



But aren't they actually a different (derived) class of numerals, a sort of «collective numerals» like Russian _трое_?



Scholiast said:


> Can anyone offer […] comparable phenomena in other inflected languages, ancient or modern?



Slavic is interesting, where (in Old Slavonic, Russian etc.) more or less all numbers are declined, yet the numbers after 4 are, as the declension and the syntactical treatment are concerned, nouns, and of course the declension of higher numbers is the declension of their last part (_пѧть на десѧте_ ‹15, gen.›, from _десѧте _‹10, gen.› in Old Slavonic). 

In any case I would still imagine that the lack of declensions for the mentioned numbers has practical reasons. I could also imagine that higher numbers were more likely to be used when counting —where no declension is necessary—, while numbers until four were more often used in attributive function, since four pieces can be perceived without counting, too.


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## Olaszinhok

As for thousand Italian is peculiar, even compared to the other Romance Languages: thousand is *mille* but two thousand is due*mila* three thousand tre*mila*
while thousands is* migliaia*: thousands of people - *migliaia di persone*. Actually *migliaia* is the irregular plural of* migliaio.*


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## Riverplatense

Olaszinhok said:


> As for thousand Italian is peculiar, even compared to the other Romance Languages



Yes, but it perfectly suits the pattern of other conserved neuter plural endings, like _braccio—braccia, ginocchio—ginocchia_ etc., with more frequent use in southern dialects, particularly Sicilian.

By the way, also Romanian (with a lot of conserved Latin plurals as well) also has _mie_ ‹thousand›, _două m*ii*_ ‹two thousand›. But here it might be not actually conserved.


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## Olaszinhok

Riverplatense said:


> By the way, also Romanian (with a lot of conserved Latin plurals as well) also has _mie_ ‹thousand›, _două m*ii*_ ‹two thousand›. But here it might be not actually conserved.



Yes, of course. I didn't take Romanian into consideration in my previous post. As you said, Romanian has plenty of irregular plurals and some of them come from Latin, but it doesn't preserve the neuter plural ending in - a like in the Italian words _migliaia, centianaia, braccia, uova_, etc. If I am not mistaken, Romanian neuter gender is essentially composed of masculine singular nouns which turn into feminine nouns in the plural.


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## robbie_SWE

Olaszinhok said:


> Yes, of course. I didn't take Romanian into consideration in my previous post. As you said, Romanian has plenty of irregular plurals and some of them come from Latin, but it doesn't preserve the neuter plural ending in - a like in the Italian words _migliaia, centianaia, braccia, uova_, etc. If I am not mistaken, Romanian neuter gender is essentially composed of masculine singular nouns which turn into feminine nouns in the plural.



Well, in Romanian there is one word (that I could think of) which preserved the neuter plural ending in -a: *ou* (n., "egg") < *ouă* (pl.)


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## Riverplatense

Olaszinhok said:


> it doesn't preserve the neuter plural ending in - a





robbie_SWE said:


> in Romanian there is one word (that I could think of) which preserved the neuter plural ending in -a: *ou* (n., "egg") < *ouă* (pl.)



However, it has conserved the ending -ORA: _timp—timpuri_. But also here the final sound seems to be changed by analogy in order to innovate the plural mark.


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## danielstan

Numeral declension in Romanian (and in some other Romance languages) is a continuation of the one in Latin:
lat. _unus _> rom. _un _(masculine)
lat. _una _> rom. _o _(feminine)
lat. _dos _> rom. _doi _(masculine)
lat. _duas _> rom. _două _(feminine)

Romanian along with Italian and its dialects south of La Spezia - Rimini line have the masculine plurals ending in _-i_.
Interesting that some Latin inherited words with a strong connotation of plural have changed their ending following this pattern, although they did not have an _-i_ in latin:

lat. _nos _> rom. _noi_, it. _noi _("we")
lat. _vos_ > rom _voi_, it. _voi _("you", plural)

lat. _dos _> rom. _doi _("2" - masculine) (Neapolitan _duje _- could be explained by a similar evolution?)
lat. _tres _> rom. _trei _("3") - I also found some similar forms in Southern Italian dialects, but I am not sure of them: Neapolitan _treje_
lat. _quinque _> rom. _cinci _("5")
lat. _sex _> it. _sei _("6")


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## OBrasilo

The Italian _migliaia_ might not be that peculiar - I seem to recall _milhares_ with the same usage in Portuguese.


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## Olaszinhok

OBrasilo said:


> The Italian _migliaia_ might not be that peculiar - I seem to recall _milhares_ with the same usage in Portuguese.


The peculiarity I was referring to was *mille - mila*


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