# Slavic: different cases after numerals 2, 3, 4 and 5+



## AndrasBP

Hello, 

Could anyone explain why in many (or most?) Slavic languages the numerals 2, 3 and 4 require different cases from 5 and above?
In Russian, for instance, nouns after 2-4 take the _singular_ genitive, while after 5-20 they're in _plural_ genitive:

один дом = one house
два, три, четыре дом*а* = two, three, four houses
пять дом*ов* = five houses

Was there some sort of "semantic barrier" between 4 and 5?


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## Awwal12

Because etymologically the cardinal numerals for 1-4 are adjectives and those for 5-10 are essentially nouns (derived from old Indo-European ordinal numerals).
It is often speculated that PIE itself actually had base 4 numeral system.


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## ahvalj

The Old East Slavic distribution was as follows:
_одинъ домъ _(_u_-stem), _одинъ столъ_ (_o_-stem)​​_дъва домы, дъва стола_​​_триѥ домове, триѥ столи _​_четыре домове, четыре столи_​​_пѧть домовъ, пѧть столъ_​_шесть домовъ, шесть столъ_​_седмь домовъ, седмь столъ_​_осмь домовъ, осмь столъ_​_девѧть домовъ, девѧть столъ_​_десѧть домовъ, десѧть столъ_​
This _дъва стола_ is actually a Nom./Acc. Dual, _триѥ/четыре столи_ are Nom. Plural and _пѧть столъ_ and above is indeed a Nom. governing a noun in Gen. Pl. 

As Awwal12 wrote, the Slavic numerals starting from 5 are former nouns, secondarily interpreted as numerals, e. g. the Indic etymological counterpart of _шесть_ — ṣaṣṭiḥ — is used for "sixty", while _треть_ and _четверть_ in Slavic are still retained as nouns (cp. Lithuanian ketvirtis). The reason for this reinterpretation was the lack of declension in Proto-Indo-European numerals above 4, which different daughter lineages resolved in different ways: Slavic used derived nouns in _*-is, _while e. g. Baltic used adjectives in _*-ı̯os,_ hence Lithianian _penki/penkios_ and Latvian _pieci/piecas_ from _*penkı̯aı̯/penkı̯ȃs, _which accordingly agree as adjectives. 

Thus, Slavic numerals 
1–4 ​are true inherited numerals agreeing with the noun in number (and the modern Russian Gen. Sg. is here either a former Nom./Acc. Du. in the masculines of the o-declension (_стола_), in the _i_-declension (_пути, ночи_) and in the soft _ā_-declension (_доли_), or a real Gen. Sg. in other types used by analogy)​5–10 ​are former nouns naturally governing a Gen. Pl. of the dependent noun (_пять коней = пятёрка коней_).​​The above Old East Slavic examples represent the Common Slavic state of affairs, but since then things were leveled in different languages to different directions, e. g. Ukrainian has lost this Dual form and uses the Nom. Pl.: _два столи,_ whereas Bulgarian as a variant may use the _-а_ ending after all numerals above 1: _два стола, пет стола, десет стола _(plus, _стол_ now means chair in Bulgarian).


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## AndrasBP

Thank you for your insightful replies.
The fact that the Russian numerals 5-10 all end in *-ь* might have given me a clue.


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## ahvalj

By the way, in modern Russian the older state of affairs is reasonably well preserved in the names of hundreds, cp. (Old East Slavic > modern Russian):

_съто_ (Nom./Acc. Sg. neutr.) > _сто_​​_дъвѣ сътѣ _(Nom./Acc. Du. neutr.) > _двести_​​_три съта_ (Nom./Acc. Pl. neutr.) > _триста_​_четыри съта_ > _четыреста_​​_пѧть_ (Nom./Acc. Sg.) _сътъ_ (Gen. Pl.) > _пятьсот_​_шесть сътъ > шестьсот_​_седмь сътъ > семьсот_​_осмь сътъ > восемьсот_​_девѧть сътъ > девятьсот_​​Note that the _ь_-numeral is in the Singular and declines accordingly (even in the modern language: _пять.сот, пяти.сот, пятью.стами_); the second element originally stood invariably in Gen. Pl., but then began to decline, though with mistakes (_пятисот_ is inherited, whereas _пятиста_ is formed after the Gen. Sg. _ста_).


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## Ben Jamin

I found once an article claiming that Proto Slavic had a grammatical system consisting of singular, dual, plural I (3, 4) and plural II (five and higher). This should explain the difference in grammar.
Can there be any substance in that claim?


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## Awwal12

A pretty strange claim, to be frank. Different syntax for different numerical constructions hardly validates introducing a new grammatical cathegory for nouns, and all attested Slavic languages don't demonstrate any difference in treating noun phrases which would depend solely on the exact number of the denotates beyond 2. By a similar logic, we could also postulate that English has (or surely must have had!) "plural I" like in "tables" and "plural II" like in "21 table". It doesn't seem to make much sense.


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## Olaszinhok

Is that grammatical system well retained by Slovene and the Sorbian languages? Both of them should preserve the dual and consequently their declention of numbers should be  akin to the old Slavic one...


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## OBrasilo

In Slovenian it is as such:
For _dom_ (_home_): _en dom, dva domova_, _trije domovi_, _štirje domovi_, _pet domov_, _šest domov_, _sedem domov_, etc.
For _stol_ (_chair_): _en stol, dva stola, trije stoli, štirje stoli, pet solov, šest stolov, sedem stolov_, etc.
For _cesta_ (_road_): _ena cesta, dve cesti, tri ceste, štiri ceste, pet cest, šest cest, sedem cest_, etc.
For _nebo_ (_sky_): _eno nebo, dve nebesi, tri nebesa, štiri nebesa, pet nebes, šest nebes, sedem nebes_, etc.
For _jadro_ (_sail_): _eno jadro, dve jadri, tri jadra, štiri jadra, pet jader, šest jader, sedem jader_, etc.

These are basically all the paradigms.

However, we have lost it with the hundreds: _sto_, _dvesto_, _tristo, štiristo, petsto, šeststo, sedemsto_, _osemsto_, _devetsto_. They are all also not declinable.


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## ahvalj

Thus, except some rearrangement of the endings, the late Common Slavic system is alive in Slovene for the first ten.

_Stol,_ as in Bulgarian, from "table" (*stel-: "to spread" > "food served on a cloth"  > "table"/"food") became "chair", apparently after the German _Stuhl_.


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## Awwal12

Doubtful, considering that the meaning "seat, bench; throne" was also present in Old Russian.
Actually "столъ" might have incorporated meanings from two different roots (PIE *steh₂- and *stel-).
Alternatively, the "stool" meanings, which seem absent in Baltic languages for some reason, might have been influenced by Gothic "sto:ls" (not sure if an outright loan is possible). In that case, столъ "table" may, in principle, originate from steh₂- or from *stel- (possibly with semantic interference between the meanings).


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## Vukabular

Serbian:* stol* _m._ ('table') > *stolica* _f._ ('chair') = English: stool ('A seat for one person without a back or armrest') basically a small table.

*st*av - '*st*ance'
*st*ub - 'pillar'
*st*ožer - 'pole'
*st*ube - 'ladder'
*st*ablo - 'the part of the tree between the root and the canopy'
*št*ap - '*st*ick'
*št*aka - 'crutch'
*št*ula - '*st*ilt'
*št*and - '*st*and'
*št*rči - '*st*ick out'
*št*ica, pritka - '*st*itch', 'sprit'
All words are associated with a long piece of wood standing upright.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> Doubtful, considering that the meaning "seat, bench; throne" was also present in Old Russian.
> Actually "столъ" might have incorporated meanings from two different roots (PIE *steh₂- and *stel-).
> Alternatively, the "stool" meanings, which seem absent in Baltic languages for some reason, might have been influenced by Gothic "sto:ls" (not sure if an outright loan is possible). In that case, столъ "table" may, in principle, originate from steh₂- or from *stel- (possibly with semantic interference between the meanings).


Yes, you're right, and a contamination from _*stolos_ and _*sthₐlos _(perhaps found in the Indic sthira) is possible here, which is the long-standing problem for etymologists. And we actually don't know whether "table (as furniture)" or "served food" (as in _стол и кров_) is the original meaning… Yet I wonder how people distinguished "chair" and "table" in their everyday life.


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## OBrasilo

There must have been confusion, since every Slavic language ended up disambiguating somehow. Serbian kept _stol_ for _table_, but made _stolica_ for _chair_. Slovenian kept _stol_ for _chair_, but borrowed Latin _mensa_ as _miza_ for _table_. Russian kept _stol_ for _table_, but borrowed German _Stuhl_ as _stul'_ (someone correct me on the soft sign if it's wrong) for _chair_. But Russian also has _stolitsa_, which has taken the meaning of _capital city_. Slovenian also has _prestol_, which means _throne_.

Now, back to the numbers, Slovenian nouns take the form for five, etc. for all the numbers five and above, except for numbers like 101, 102, 103, 104, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, etc. where we say eg. _sto en stol_, _sto dva stola_, _sto trije stoli, sto štirje stoli, tisoč in en stol, tisoč in dva stola, tisoč in trije stoli, tisoč in štirje stoli._


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## Awwal12

OBrasilo said:


> (someone correct me on the soft sign if it's wrong)


Yes, the /l/ is hard.


OBrasilo said:


> Slovenian also has _prestol_, which means _throne_.


Much like in Russian (mostly in religious or very elevated contexts), although here it's actually a loanword from Church Slavonic (pre- instead of pere- is quite telling).


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## ahvalj

Yet, we don't know how old was this homonymy. Assuming a phonetic merger of _*stolos_ "something spread" and _*sthₐlos _"something stable" into _*stalas _(update: _*stalan,_ since prosody — the accentual paradigm b — suggests it was originally a neuter stem), it must have been at least some three millennia old. Well, this has been discussed for more than 150 years and the honest answer is that we simply have no data to move forward in resolving this question. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that semantic issue in #10.

I once again urge not to confuse the material side of Church Slavonic loans (the _rě _in this case) with historical implications: Church Slavonic was a written language of Rus' since the beginning of literacy in the 10th century, and people learned it as modern dialectal speakers in countries with considerable dialectal diversity learn the standard language, so the fact that modern Russian has the Church Slavonic form doesn't necessarily mean there was no counterpart of this word with this sense in the local speech, or anything else, it most probably just means that this was a word from the elevated style of the language reflecting the elevated sense of the state or church position associated with the throne.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> so the fact that modern Russian has the Church Slavonic form doesn't necessarily mean there was no counterpart of this word with this sense in the local speech


No, it doesn't. Still, the fact is that "престол" is a loan.


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## ahvalj

_Равный_ is also a loan. One can assume future Russians didn't have a concept of equality.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> _Равный_ is also a loan. One can assume future Russians didn't have a concept of equality.


One can assume a lot of different things. Still, loanwords are loanwords. If "лошадь" and "туман" are loanwords, does it mean that early East Slavs didn't know about horses and had never seen a fog? Unlikely so. I don't see why it should be accentuated so much.


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## ahvalj

Because the concept of Church Slavonic loans looks overused. The relationship between Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic was much more like the relationship of the written metropolitan language and local dialects than between a foreign and a local idiom. Very many of these words (and grammatical forms like participles) have been in use since the 11th century, during the entire written tradition, so while formally speaking they _are_ loans, they _aren't_ loans like _лошадь_ and _туман_, or like _бутерброд, журнал, мерчандайзер_ or _имплицитный._

To conclude from my side, an observation. The word for "slave" (Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/orbъ - Wiktionary) in standard East Slavic languages is _раб,_ i. e. a form of South Slavic provenance, while in South Slavic the East/West Slavic _роб_ is/was widespread. This _does_ shed light on the trade routes.


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## Vukabular

ahvalj said:


> _Stol,_ as in Bulgarian, from "table" (*stel-: "to spread" > "food served on a cloth" > "table"/"food") became "chair", apparently after the German _Stuhl_.


Serbian:
*stelja* 
- forest rug made from fallen leaves from trees, twigs, dead organisms, etc.
- a bed of straw for cattle
- mutton prepared so that bones were pulled from the whole sheep and the meat was     *spread* and smoked

*posteljina* - 'bed sheets'


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## ahvalj

ahvalj said:


> Yet, we don't know how old was this homonymy. Assuming a phonetic merger of _*stolos_ "something spread" and _*sthₐlos _"something stable" into _*stalas _(update: _*stalan,_ since prosody — the accentual paradigm b — suggests it was originally a neuter stem), it must have been at least some three millennia old. Well, this has been discussed for more than 150 years and the honest answer is that we simply have no data to move forward in resolving this question. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that semantic issue in #10.


I've found a neat match in the form of the Sanskrit sthalam < _*sthₐelom,_ that is _*sthₐ-el-o-m,_ a proto-form that would produce the Slavic _*stalan>stolъ_ (Illič-Svityč's law). _Prěstolъ_ then would formally correspond to paristhalam, though both words are most probably independent formations.
Going deeper, this _*sthₐelom_ may represent a thematicization of an ancient neuter _*sthₐel_ "something standing" (with a zero grade of the root like in suhₐel "sun" > suvar or _*dʰgʲʰm̥el_ → χθαμαλός).​


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