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2010 – 2011
Dissertation presented by Alexander Demoor to the Faculty of Arts and
Philosophy to obtain the degree of Master of Advanced Linguistics in A
Comparative Perspective.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Gunnar De Boel
The Concordant and Genitival Numeric
Phrases in Indo-European
The Concordant and Genitival Numeric Phrases in Indo-
European
An exploration of their origin and evolution
Alexander Demoor
University of Ghent
Abstract
This exploratory article focuses on a largely neglected aspect of Indo-European linguistics,
namely the internal syntax of the two different types of numeric phrase constructions which
were utilized in Proto-Indo-European. I denominate these constructions as the Concordant
Numeric Phrase and the Genitival Numeric Phrase respectively. In the former, the cardinal
numeral displays concord for case, gender and number with the quantified noun phrase, in the
latter, it teams up with the genitive plural form of the noun phrase, without displaying concord
with it. The origin, status and subsequent evolution of these numeric phrase constructions were
evaluated for Proto-Indo-European and 16 of its descendants. I conclude that the gradual
evolution of the Indo-European numeral system, for which I propose a relative chronology, is
responsible for the general Indo-European rift between the cardinal numerals from ‘one’ to
‘four’ and the ones from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’. The first set of cardinal numerals could be declined
and consequently required a Concordant Numeric Phrase. As the second set of cardinal
numerals was introduced into the language at a later stage, it was not adapted as well as the first
set, and could not be declined. Hence the genitive case was used to link the quantified noun
phrase with the cardinal numeral as an alternative for concord, giving rise to the Genitival
Numeric Phrase, of which the use was extended to the cardinal numerals from ‘twenty’ onwards,
which were added later still. However, the rift remained and often caused extensive leveling in
favor of one of the two.
Keywords: Indo-European, numeric phrase syntax, numeric phrase typology, cardinal numerals,
numeral systems, number sense, concord
0. Introduction1
Both ancient and modern Indo-European languages reveal the existence of two
syntactically distinct, but semantically equal ways of constructing numeric phrases2.
The first one involves concord in case, gender and number between an adjectivally
used cardinal numeral (henceforth: CN) and the quantified noun phrase. Henceforth I
will refer to this numeric phrase construction as the Concordant Numeric Phrase,
abbreviated as CNP. The CNP is fully compatible with the fusional-flectional nature of
Indo-European, as both the CN and the noun phrase have the ability to jointly adjust
their forms according to the case they need to express. Examples of the CNP in the
oldest comprehensive Indo-European language we know, Vedic Sanskrit, are (1) and
(2), in which we can clearly distinguish concord between the CN and the noun phrase
for the nominative and the locative case respectively:
(1) Trīṇy āyūṃṣi tava Jātavedas, […].
three-NOM.PL / life-NOM.PL / you-GEN.SG / Jātavedas-VOC.SG
“Three lives you have, O Knower of Beings, […].” [RV 3.17.3]
1 Acknowledgements: I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Gunnar De Boel for
scrutinizing the available parts of this dissertation and putting up with the many difficulties involving
its toilsome development. Moreover, I wish to thank Michel De Dobbeleer, Luc De Grauwe, Dieter
Stern, Miriam Taverniers and Mieke Van Herreweghe for providing interesting and useful suggestions
on various occasions. Finally, I owe much gratitude to Martine Rottier for her practical help involving
the acquisition of the extensive source material.
2 The following abbreviations are used throughout the article: A active / ABL ablative / ACC accusative
/ ADV adverb / AOR aorist / CN cardinal numeral / CNP Concordant Numeric Phrase / CoPo comitative
postposition / DAT dative / DU dual / ENCL enclitic / GEN genitive / GNP Genitival Numeric Phrase /
IMP imperative / IMPF imperfect / IND indicative / INESS inessive / INSTR instrumental / JNP
Juxtapositional Numeric Phrase / LOC locative / LoPo locative postposition / MP mediopassive / NEG
negation / NOM nominative / OBL oblique / OPT optative / PAP present active participle / PERL
perlative / PL plural / PPP past passive participle / PRES present / PrS pronominal suffix / SG singular
/ SUBJ subjunctive / VOC vocative. For the abbreviations of the used corpora, I refer to the second part
of the bibliography.
(2) Śunaḥśepo hy ahvad gṛbhītas triṣv Ādityaṃ drupadeṣu baddhaḥ.
Śunaḥśepa-NOM.SG / for / call-AOR.3SG / seize-PPP.NOM.SG / three-LOC.PL
/ Āditya-ACC.SG / pillar-LOC.PL / bind-PPP.NOM.SG
“For Śunaḥśepa, (which had been) seized, bound on three pillars, called the
son of Aditi.” [RV 1.24.13]
The second way of constructing a numerical phrase involves a different strategy to
syntactically link the CN with the quantified noun phrase: The numeral is juxtaposed
to the noun phrase it determines, which then assumes the form of the genitive plural
case. Henceforth I will refer to this numeric phrase construction as the Genitival
Numeric Phrase, abbreviated as GNP. A very literal translation of typical Indo-
European GNPs such as Old Irish tricha cáerach and Old Church Slavonic pętь na
desęte rabъ in English would be ‘(a) thirty of sheep’ and ‘(a) five on ten (= fifteen) of
servants’ respectively, which could be couched in the formula [CARDINAL QUANTITY
of ENTITIES] [Nandriş, 1959: 121; Thurneysen, 1966: 244]. Some examples, once
more from Vedic Sanskrit, display the two distinct forms the GNP could take in
ancient Indo-European, according to the status of its CN component:
(3) Ṣaḍ bhārāṁ Eko acaran bibharty […].
Six / burden-GEN.PL / one-NOM.SG / go-NEG.PAP.NOM.SG / carry-
PRES.A.3SG
“Six burdens the One, who does not go, carries […].” [RV 3.56.2]
(4) Ye me pañcāśataṃ dadur aśvānāṃ sadhastuti.
who-NOM.PL / I-ENCL.DAT.SG / fifty-ACC.SG / give-PERF.3SG / horse-
GEN.PL / with joint praise-ADV
“Who have given fifty horses to me with joint praise.” [RV 5.18.5]
Example (3) involves an indeclinable adjectival CN teaming up with the quantified
noun phrase in the genitive plural. By contrast, example (4) features a declinable
substantival CN which is inflected for the accusative case3, signaling its syntactic role
as a direct object, although the noun phrase it quantifies is not affected by this and
still appears in the genitive plural case.
Since the GNP in (3) occurs as a verbal argument in this particular example, it
might be argued that we are dealing with some sort of bare partitive construction4
here. However, this is very unlikely, as the ‘six burdens’ do not seem to be partially
affected by the action which the verb denotes, that is, they are fully carried.
Alternatively, one could label any ancient Indo-European construction consisting of a
quantifier determining a noun phrase in the genitive plural as a partitive
construction, because these languages do not tend to have definite articles to make
the distinction with the GNP5. Conversely, in many modern Standard Average
European languages the quantified noun phrase in a partitive construction requires a
determiner in the form of a definite article, a demonstrative pronoun or a possessive
pronoun [Jackendoff, 1977: 113; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, 2009: 336-337]. However, one
3 Strictly speaking, since śata- ‘hundred’ is a neuter of the a-stems, one cannot verify whether the case
ending actually indicates a nominative or an accusative singular. Nonetheless other Indo-European
languages confirm the CN for ‘hundred’ to have been inflected, take for instance Modern Lithuanian:
(i) S imt l t nei siver sime.
with / hundred-INSTR.PL / litas (Lithuanian currency)-GEN.PL / make do-NEG.PRES.1PL
“We cannot make do with hundred litas.” [Ambrazas, 1997: 175-176]
Consequently it is reasonable to accept that we are dealing with an accusative singular case.
4 From a typological perspective, the bare partitive construction constitutes a verbal argument
appearing in whichever case encodes partitivity in the appropriate language (usually the genitive in
Indo-European), which alternates with another case, mostly the accusative, to convey various semantic
oppositions, including indefiniteness versus definiteness, incompletion versus completion, affirmative
versus negative statements, unboundedness versus boundedness, and finally partial versus full
affectedness respectively [Hoeksema, 1996: 15-17; Kiparsky, 1998: 268, 301; Luraghi, 2008: 247;
Napoli, 2010: 19-20].
5 In fact, most of the ancient descendants of Proto-Indo-European employed very different strategies to
mark some degree of definiteness, such as individuating derivational suffixes (Proto-Indo-European *-
le, *-ne, and *-de for instance) or case variation [Bauer, 2009: 72-73].
could hardly argue against the GNP in favor of a cardinal partitive construction in the
case of (3) and (4), which would alter their translations to ‘six of the burdens’ and
‘fifty of the horses’ respectively. From a semantic point of view, partitive
constructions express a part-whole relation between a precise or an approximate
subset of a larger referential superset of entities [Hoeksema, 1996: 2-3; Kobuchi-
Philip, 2006: 395; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, 2009: 330]. From a pragmatic point of view,
as proposed by Reed [1996]6, the partitive construction accesses a subset of a
previously evoked discourse entity. If one closely analyzes the context of the Vedic
hymns in which examples (3) and (4) appear, one can see that these do not
communicate a part-whole relation and that they do not access a subset of a discourse
entity which was evoked earlier on in each of the hymns: No burdens or horses are
mentioned in the preceding verses.
Although the situation in other ancient Indo-European languages show the GNPs
in (3) and (4) to be inherited from Proto-Indo-European, the GNP in (3) was probably
already unstable in Late Proto-Indo-European, as the indeclinable CN type it featured
could not by any means express case. Therefore, it need not surprise that a GNP
featuring an indeclinable CN7 could only exist if the numeric phrase functioned as a
subject or a direct object8, since it failed to convey the specialized semantic content of
the other oblique cases. This is probably the reason why we can see a “third” type of
6 Among others Reed [1996: 142-143, 174-178] founds her theory on the works of Webber [1986:
397], who argues that speakers engaged in discourse employ a discourse model composed of various
discourse entities, representing extra-linguistic referents: “A speaker refers to something by
utterances that either evoke (if first reference) or access (if subsequent reference) its corresponding
discourse entity”. It is an indefinite noun phrase which introduces or evokes a new discourse entity,
setting up a discursive blueprint as it were or “starting a new card” according to the Novelty rule, and a
definite one which accesses that same entity or “updates an old card” as stated by the Familiarity rule
[Brogaard, 2007: 410].
7 The Proto-Indo-European CNs ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ were all indeclinable adjectives. However, in chapter
one I will further elaborate on their status.
8 This is corroborated by the declined substantival CNs dẽšimt ‘ten’ to devýniasdẽšimt ‘ninety’ in Modern
Lithuanian, which can only have its optional inflectionless forms in the nominative and accusative singular
case [Ambrazas, 1997: 175].
numeric phrase construction at work in the different ancient Indo-European
languages, consisting of a CN of the aforementioned type which teams up with a fully
inflected quantified noun phrase. This is exemplified by (5), which features a
quantified noun phrase in the nominative plural case where we would expect a
genitive plural case, i.e. pañca janānām, such as in (3):
(5) Viśve devā Aditiḥ, pañca janā Aditir, jātam Aditir.
all-NOM.PL / god-NOM.PL / Aditi-NOM.SG / five / people-NOM.PL / Aditi-
NOM.SG / be born-PPP.NOM.SG
“Aditi (is) all gods, Aditi (is) the five peoples, Aditi (is) the born.” [RV
1.89.10]
As I will argue in chapter two, this numeric phrase construction constitutes an
intermediary phase between a GNP and a CNP. Accordingly, I do not view it as a truly
autonomous numeric phrase construction (hence the quotation marks on “third”
above). However, since we should at least be able to refer to it in a simple way, I
propose to bring it to the denominator of Juxtapositional Numeric Phrase for lack of a
better name, henceforth abbreviated as JNP.
Examples (1) to (4) confirm that the Indo-European CNP and GNP are to be
perceived as autonomous numeric phrase constructions in the Indo-European
languages, i.e. that they are to be separated from partitive constructions. Still, the
relevant literature has largely taken them for granted, without further inquiring into
their various formal and semantic aspects, and ultimately their origin. Until the
appellations proposed in this article were devised, the CNP and GNP have not borne
names of their own. Furthermore a lot of (important) grammars fail to provide
relevant data about the internal syntax of numeric phrase constructions, as if they
want to give these a wide berth. Thus, the study of the CNP and GNP currently takes
up a very marginal position in the landscape of Indo-European linguistics in the best
case, or even a non-existent one in the worst case: The exploration of the CNP and
GNP offered in this article is, at least to my knowledge, the only one available. Such a
gap in the knowledge of one of the best studied phyla in the world might be
unexpected, but not without challenging opportunities. Therefore the main goal of
this article is the much-needed establishment of numeric phrase syntax as an
autonomous research subject in the field of Indo-European linguistics9, by exploring
its origin and status in Proto-Indo-European and to track its evolution in the different
subphyla which have descended from it.
At this point, it is necessary to state that the CNP and the GNP have more or less
disappeared in a lot of modern Indo-European languages which have lost most or all
of their case-inflection. In the languages that still do actively use it, it is often limited
to a certain set of CNs. As we shall see in the next chapter, the relation between the
CNP and the GNP in Proto-Indo-European reflects this latter observation, in that it
was dependent on the nature of the CNs themselves. The majority of its modern
descendants indicate that the CNP and the GNP have vied with each other for a long
time, with results ranging from a near-complete leveling out in favor of one of the
two, to a systematic compromise between both, cf Brugmann & Delbrück [1911: 6].
To tackle the many problems involving the aforecited main goal of this article , an
explorative and versatile account of a lot of aspects pertaining to both numeric phrase
constructions has to be offered in the next chapters. Firstly, a tentative evolutionary
explanation will be presented as to why there was a categorical rift between the
prime and the non-prime CNs and how this affected the distribution of the CNP and
the GNP in Proto-Indo-European. Some attention will be devoted to the development
of the Indo-European numeral system as well. Secondly the evolution of the
CNP/JNP/GNP-distribution in 16 Indo-European languages from every subphyla will
be tentatively mapped and evaluated. As is the nature of an explorative study, not all
Indo-European languages can be given a chance, which is why the emphasis will lie on
the earlier phases of the most important languages of every subphylum. Justified
exceptions are Albanian, which has only been attested fairly recently, and Modern
9 It need hardly be mentioned that the development of this field of research could substantially benefit
the study of numeric phrase typology as a whole.
Lithuanian, which is generally conservative enough to be treated as an equal between
the ancient languages.
1. Origin of the Indo-European CNP and GNP
As is the case with many aspects of Proto-Indo-European, the opinions on the status
of its CNs differ greatly among specialists. Brugmann & Delbrück [1911: 5-6] asserted
that the numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’ were declinable adjectives, requiring a CNP,
whilst ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ were indeclinable adjectives and all numerals from ‘twenty’
onwards were declinable substantives, requiring a GNP. This has become the
generally accepted view, cf Hirt [1927: 308, 310-311], Krahe [1943: 107], Szemerényi
[1996: 221-222] and Watkins [2006: 67]. Meillet [1908: 373-376] deviated from this
paradigm and claimed that the CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ were not indeclinable
adjectives, but indeclinable elements reminding of the first part of a Dvigu
compound10. Wackernagel [2009: 467] deemed only the CN ‘one’ to be an adjective,
which gradually caused the larger numerals to shift their categories and start
behaving like adjectives as well over time. By contrast, Meier-Brügger [2006: 236]
has argued that all CNs from ‘one’ to ‘thousand’ originally were “Indeklinablia” in
Proto-Indo-European, always governing the genitive plural case, although the
numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’ gradually shifted to the adjectival category through the
addition of nominal endings in Proto-Indo-European. Such a view seems to
presuppose that all CNs were already present in pre-Proto-Indo-European, even
though it is more likely that the numeral system was established in various
diachronic stages, as will be substantiated in 1.2. . Lehmann [1974: 69-70, 208, 231-
232] supports a more radical version of Meier-Brügger’s theory, as he thinks that
concord between adjectives and nouns was only a very late development in Proto-
Indo-European: “For an early period of PIE we may assume that adjectives were
10 Dvigu is a concept hailing from Sanskrit grammar. A Dvigu compound is considered to be a special
kind of Karmadhāraya, i.e. an attributive compound, of which the first part is a numeral [Scharpé,
1943: 84].
uninflected, as relic constructions in Hittite [and also Latin, AD] indicate; kurur
[=‘hostile’, AD] […] could be used adjectivally by simply preposing it to nouns”. This
entails that all CNs were originally indeclinable as well, yet “[a]s inflection became
more prominent, the numerals most clearly associated with the number category
came to be inflected”. In other words, the verbal and the nominal singular, dual and
plural categories, already firmly rooted in pre-Proto-Indo-European, influenced the
CNs ‘one’ to ‘four’ to assume singular, dual and plural forms. Hence *Hoino-, *Hoiu o-
and *sem- ‘one’ received singular endings, *du oh1- ‘two’ dual endings and *trei -
‘three’ and kw tu or- ‘four’ plural endings [Beekes, 1990: 212, 254, 256; Brugmann &
Delbrück, 1911: 6-8, 10, 12; Winter, 1992a: 12]. However, if ‘three’ and ‘four’ received
plural endings due to their association with the plural category, why didn’t the same
happen with all CNs from ‘five’ onwards, as these too stood for a non-single, non-dual,
i.e. plural quantity? Unfortunately, Lehmann did not provide an explanation for this
discrepancy.
I will adopt the aforecited, generally accepted view as a framework for this
article. In any case, the origin of the rift between the declinable, adjectival CNs from
‘one’ to ‘four’ and the remaining CNs has important implications for the distribution
of the CNP and the GNP. The distribution of both in Proto-Indo-European was already
sketched above: The declinable adjectival CNs required a CNP, since they relied on
concord to link up with the counted noun phrase, whilst the indeclinable adjectival
and declinable substantival CNs obviously lacked the ability to display concord with
the quantified noun phrase11 and for some reason started to govern the genitive
plural case, as if it were an alternative for the concord of the CNP.
Consequently, two essential question will have to be tackled in the ensuing
subchapters: 1) Where does the Proto-Indo-European division in adjectival and
11 More precisely speaking, the indeclinable adjectival CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ did not allow for
concord at all, and the declinable substantival ones from ‘twenty’ onwards were the heads of their
numeric phrases, because they could take the forms of all contextually needed cases due to their ability
to inflect.
substantival CNs come from and 2) what are its implications for the development of
the CNP and GNP?
1.1. The Number sense and the general development of numeral systems
An evolutionary and partly extra-linguistic account seems to urge itself upon us with
regard to the first question posed above. In the Introduction I already referred to
‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’ as prime CNs. The reason I utilized this appellation is
because these numeric concepts are grafted onto the so-called number sense, which
will be at the centre stage of my attempt to account for the origin of the Indo-
European adjectival CNs from ‘one’ to ‘four’. Dehaene [2001: 17] has repeatedly
argued that the “foundations of arithmetic lie in our ability to mentally represent and
manipulate numerosities on a mental ‘number line’, an analogical representation of
number”, which “has a long evolutionary history and a specific cerebral substrate”12.
This innate, pre-linguistic ability to discriminate and understand numerosities in our
environment has been called the number sense, and we share it with other animals
(mammals, to be precise), confirming it to be a very ancient trait bestowed upon us
by evolution [Dehaene et al, 1998; Dehaene, 2001; McGregor, 2007]. A crucial notion
in this regard is subitization13, the “direct and accurate perception of numbers up to
about four”, which humans share with other mammals as well; assessment of
numbers above four is only approximate [Clark & Grossman, 2007: 51]. The ability to
actually surpass this approximation, i.e. a precise number sense exceeding the limit of
four, is available to humans, whose cognitive evolution has reached a higher level
than other mammals, but only if it is somehow “activated” and encoded into linguistic
symbols, as these have “a causal role in the acquisition of exact numerical
competence, allowing children to extend their abilities to reason about small numbers
12 In particular, Dehaene [2001: 23] has pointed out that the inferior parietal cortices “contribute to a
biologically-determined numerical representation” as essential nodes in the distributed circuit of
number processing,
13 Gordon [2004: 498] for his part has called this ability parallel individuation.
of objects to larger quantities” [Frank et al, 2008: 819]. The literature dealing with the
number sense does not explicitly mention where the need for this “activation” comes
from. However, one could imagine that the rise of an increasingly complex economy
and social organization since the Neolithic Revolution has influenced the need for
linguistic symbols denoting fixed and precise cardinalities to some extent, at least in
societies which went ahead with it. This assumption is indeed confirmed by some
recent studies dealing with numeral systems and numeral typology, see Epps [2006:
282] for further references. Thus “all children are born with a quantity representation
which provides the core meaning of numerical quantity”, whilst “[e]xposure to a
given language, culture, and mathematical education leads to the acquisition of
additional domains of competence such as a lexicon of number words, a set of digits
for written notation, procedures for multidigit calculation, and so on” [Dehaene:
2001: 27]. Consequently, one would expect that linguistic groups which have not
systematically exploited the (precise) number sense and the innate arithmetic
abilities it provides us with – for instance because their way of living has not (yet)
created the need to precisely assess large(r) quantities – would have a very limited
numerical lexicon. In other words, its inventory of (cardinal) numerals would only
reflect the subitization phase.
Interestingly, this seems to be the case for a number of Australian and Amazonian
languages, which have functioned in societies which have practiced a hunter-gatherer
way of life (sometimes supplemented by a primitive form of agriculture) for many
thousands of years [Dixon & Aikhenvald, 1999a: 9; Epps, 2006: 260]. The Pirahã
language for instance, considered to be an Amazonian isolate, uses a “one-two-many”
numeral system14, with experiments suggesting that the speakers of the language can
only precisely distinguish numerosities up to three and approximate everything
beyond three [Dixon & Aikhenvald, 1999c: 355-356; Gordon, 2004]. Additional
experiments conducted by Frank et al [2008: 823] have caused them to postulate that
14 A more accurate description would be “small imprecise quantity-larger imprecise quantity-many”, as
hói and hoí, traditionally translated as ‘one’ and ‘two’ respectively, do not exclusively denote precise
quantities as CNs in Standard Average European do [Gordon, 2004: 497].
numbers, and thus (cardinal) numerals “may be better thought of as an invention: A
cognitive technology for representing, storing, and manipulating the exact
cardinalities of sets”. This conclusion seems to tie in well with the preserved hunter-
gatherer way of life of the Pirahã, if one is willing the believe that Stone Age cultures,
both in the past and today, have little need for precise number assessment, due to
their fairly simple economy and modest degree of social organization [Dixon &
Aikhenvald, 1999a: 4; Winter, 1999: 43]. A similar situation exists in Amazonian
Mundurukù, a language of Tupí descent, which encodes numerals up to ‘five’, of which
the numerals up to ‘three’ are used for precise distinction, and ‘four’ to ’five’ for
approximate understanding; their economy is based on a mixture of hunting-
gathering and primitive agriculture, reflecting their relatively better distinction of
precise numbers [Dehaene et al, 2004; Rodrigues, 1999: 107]. A cross-linguistic study
of the numeral systems existing in the different Amazonian languages in the Nadahup
phylum shows their numeral inventory to vary from a “one-two-three-many” system
to more complex numeral systems, according to the amount of contact with and the
resulting (linguistic) borrowing from the neighboring non-Nadahup-speaking,
sedentary tribes [Epps, 2006]. Thus, etymological research can unravel the “marks of
successive phases of invention” or borrowing in seemingly monolithic numeral
systems [Hurford, 1987: 78].
1.2. The development of the Indo-European numeral system
That the insight into the universal origin and development of numeral systems
described above in rough outline can be applied to the context of Indo-European
should not be disputed. With the exception of the many roots for expressing ‘one’15,
15 A deictic origin has been proposed for *Hoino- ‘one’ (> Sanskrit ena- ‘he, this one’), comparable with
the numeral ‘one’ in Hup and Yuhup, which most probably developed from the demonstrative pronoun
[Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 6, Epps, 2006: 274; Martinez, 1999: 206]. In other words, the notion
‘one’ could initially have been grafted onto the singling out of a referent. *sem- ‘one, together’ seems to
have been motivated by some sense of unification of separate entities into a collective entity [Beekes,
1990: 254; Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 7; Köbler, 2000: 222-225]. Finally, *Hoiu o-‘one, alone’
the prime CNs ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’ remain etymologically opaque, [Brugmann &
Delbrück, 1911: 8, 11, 12; Winter, 1992a: 12]. This suggests these to have been
encoded as linguistic counterparts of the basic number sense into pre-Proto-Indo-
European at a very early stage. The forms of ‘one’ and ‘two’ demonstrate that they
already denoted precise quantities early on: ‘one’ clearly encodes an indivisible
singularity, whilst the dual form of ‘two’ points at an exact interpretation of just two
entities. To understand how these numerals came to behave as declinable adjectives,
we should briefly examine the development of inflection in Indo-European. If we take
very early pre-Proto-Indo-European to have known an inflectionless stage, cf Hirt
[1934: 31-33]16, by the time it manifested itself as an inflected language, the
adjectives, substantives and the available inventory of CNs, i.e. ‘one’ to ‘four’, probably
formed one larger category of declinable elements in the language, cf Brugmann &
Delbrück [1911: 653] and Fortson [2010: 134]. By the time Proto-Indo-European
emerged, the substantival and adjectival categories were already differentiated, since
the latter allowed for gender shift and the comparative and superlative degree [Hirt,
1927: 270; Wackernagel, 2009: 465]. Consequently, I reject the vision of Lehmann
[1974: 69, 208], who postulated that Early Proto-Indo-European adjectives could not
be inflected on the basis of some (partly) indeclinable adjectives with a consonantal
stem in Hittite and in Latin, e.g. kurur ‘hostile’ and vetus ‘old’. Although the numerals
constituted a separate semantic category, they were classified as adjectives by their
native speakers to judge from their forms. Hence, as a result of their considerable age,
the prime CNs were fully adapted to the fusional-flectional nature of Indo-European,
which explains their appearance as adjectives in Proto-Indo-European, thus allowing
for the use of a CNP as a syntactically transparent way of constructing numeric
phrases.
encodes separation and individuation, cf Proto-Indo-Iranian *aiu a ‘alone’ > Sanskrit eva ‘just so’ and
iva ‘as, like’ [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 6-7; Emmerick, 1992: 165].
16 It has been argued that all case forms developed from earlier autonomous morphemes, such as
postpositions or determinatives, e.g. nominative and genitive *-s from an older individuating nominal
suffix [Lehmann, 1974: 192].
As we will see, this is not the case with the non-prime numerals. An analysis of
the etymological origins of the non-prime numerals from ‘five’ onwards reveal them
to have secondary motivations, that is, they are derived from an existing lexeme. This
points in the direction of a later date of introduction into the pre-Proto-Indo-
European numeral system than the prime CNs. Let us have a look at the proposed
etymologies of these non-prime CNs. *penkwe- ‘five’ is derived from a root *penkw-
denoting the concept ‘hand’; a Proto-Indo-European etymon *penk(w)sti- ‘fist’ can
even be proposed for forms such as English fist (< Old English fȳst < Proto-Germanic
*funχsti-) and Old Church Slavonic pęstь ‘fist’ [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 4;
Köbler, 2000: 65; Winter, 1992a: 17]17. Szemerényi [1960: 78-79] proposed that
*s(u )eḱs ‘six’ originated in *(H)u eḱs- ‘to grow’; ‘six’ then would mean something like
‘the next (increased) unit after the initial set of five fingers’. After stripping down the
apparent suffixes of *septm , the root *sep- remains isolated and unmotivated,
possibly constituting a borrowing from Semitic [Winter, 1992a: 12, 17]. For
*h3eḱteh3- (alternatively *oḱto-) ‘eight’, it has been argued that it shows traces of a
masculine dual ending in its Sanskrit and Gothic reflexes, i.e. aṣṭ|u and ahtau
respectively, constituting the dual form of the Proto-Indo-European etymon of
Avestan a ti- ‘four (stretched) fingers’, ultimately meaning ‘two times four fingers’,
which hints at the use of multiplication to devise new numerals [Beekes, 1990: 255;
Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 3; Macdonell, 1910: 309; Winter, 1992a: 13]. A similar
explanation of *(h1)n u n ‘nine’ has met with many difficulties. The view that it is the
endingless locative of *neu r ‘(the) new (one)’, reinforced by the preposition*en ‘in’ in
17 The use of the human body in counting systems seems to be a universal characteristic typical of, but
not restricted to human societies without a systematic knowledge of arithmetic. Often this counting
system is limited to the fingers and the hands [Gordon, 2004: 496]. As is witnessed from the cortical
homunculus, the inferior parietal cortices, which, as was mentioned in footnote 11, are crucial for the
number sense, are located in the direct vicinity of the part of the brain which regulates finger
movement, suggesting that “the human number sense is intimately tied with counting on the fingers”
from a neuro-biological perspective [Clark & Grossman, 2007: 52]. There are even languages in which
the numerals are based on body parts from the entire upper body, functioning according to a complex
sequence of body parts, such as Oksapmin, a Trans-New Guinean language [Saxe, 1981: 307].
Greek ennéa (of which the geminate [n:] is hard to account for otherwise) and
Armenian inn, does not comply with the principles of Occam’s razor, for it must resort
to unnecessary new assumptions to explain the corresponding Greek ordinals
displaying only one /n/ [Beekes, 1990: 255; Köbler, 2000: 46; Waanders, 1992: 373;
Winter, 1992a: 13-14, 17; Winter, 1992g: 350]. However, if this view were to be true,
the laryngeal which has traditionally been reconstructed for this root would have to
be removed, furthermore the fact that ‘nine’ originally meant something like ‘in the
new’ would suggest the existence of a quaternary system, with ‘nine’ denoting a new
element after the second set of four, i.e. ‘eight’. This conflicts with the suggested
meaning of *d ḱm t ‘ten’ as ‘two hands’ (*ḱm t- ‘hand’ > Gothic handus ‘hand’, Greek -
konta ‘decade’, Sanskrit -ś|t ‘decade’) , which lends support to the existence of an
earlier quinary system, although the absence of the /u / in *dé- (< *du - ‘two’) has not
been expounded sufficiently [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 4; Szemerényi, 1960: 69;
Winter, 1992a: 17]18. All remaining CNs are derived from the combination of the
prime and non-prime CNs from ‘one’ to ‘ten’. In this regard, three words for
‘thousand’ form an important exception. The first form *ǵheslo-, attested in Greek
kh lioi, Sanskrit sahásra- and Avestan hazaŋra- (with sa-/ha- < *sm - ‘one’) and
possibly Latin mīlle (< *mīli < *smih2ǵhslih2-, a female /ī/-stem variation on the
Sanskrit and Avestan forms), derives from another word for ‘hand’ (cf Greek kheír
and Hittite ke ( )ar < *ǵhesr - and Sanskrit hásta < *ǵhesto-), perhaps originally
designating a handful of small, innumerable objects, such as grains of corn [Beekes,
1990: 150, 258; Coleman, 1992: 407-408; Eichner, 1992: 72; Meier-Brügger, 2002:
239]. The Tocharian data yields Turfanian yaltse and Kučean wälts, both meaning
‘thousand’, which can be reflexes of *u eldho- ‘(provided with) strength’ or *u elos-
‘greatness’; it might have modified the CN ‘hundred’ before attaining its status as a
separate lexical unit; the original phrase then meant ‘great, strong hundred’ [Krause
18 In correspondence with the universal development of numeral systems mentioned in this
subchapter, we had best assumed the existence of a quinary system prior to the emergence of a
decimal one; once firmly established the latter replaced the former in terms of productivity. For a
similar view, see Martínez [1999].
& Thomas, 1960: 160; Winter, 1992c: 124]. ‘Thousand’ as a combination of ‘strength’
and ‘hundred’ is also apparent in the composition *túh1(s)ḱm to-, which has only been
attested in Germanic and Balto-Slavonic (cf Proto-Germanic *þūsχundi-, Lithuanian
tūkstantis and Old Church Slavonic tysę ti), with the first element denoting ‘great,
very’ (cf Sanskrit tuvi- ‘very, much’, Low German dūst ‘swelling’ and Lithuanian tūkti
‘to get fat’) [Comrie, 1992: 792; Entwistle & Morison, 1969: 144; Krause, 1968: 188;
Zinkevičius, 1996: 136].
As was argued above, the emergence of linguistic symbols encoding precise
number concepts above four is tied in with specific needs originating in a way of life
that has developed more complex socio-economical principles than the ones existent
in hunter-gatherer societies, cf the notion of numerals as pieces of cognitive
technology proposed by Frank et al [2008]. The mixed economy of agriculture and
pastoralism associated with the Kurgan culture, which according to the traditional
hypothesis of Gimbutas consisted of the speakers of (pre-)Proto-Indo-European,
satisfies such a condition, as the “raising of livestock, let alone trading activities,
makes mastery of a range of numerals essential” [Beekes, 1990: 77-78; Fortson, 2004:
41; Winter, 1999: 43]. So it became to be that the Indo-Europeans gradually extended
the numeral inventory of their language “by borrowing or innovating higher and
higher sets of numerals to meet their changing needs” [Epps, 2006: 260].
Having established the gradual character of the numeral system’s development, a
relative chronology of its various stages can now be suggested. The precise age of the
prime CNs cannot be determined. The evidence provided above leads one to suspect
that they are nearly as old as the phenomenon of human language itself; as a result,
we can assume them to have already been a solid part of the small pre-Proto-Indo-
European numeral system. Brugmann & Delbrück [1911: 3] presumed that the
motivation of the non-prime CNs had already reached a status of semantic opacity in
Proto-Indo-European: “Die konkrete Sachvorstellung, die ursprünglich in die
Zahlbegriffe eingeschlossen gewesen muss, war schon in uridg. Zeit daraus
eliminiert”. Moreover, no proto-forms can be reconstructed for ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’
and even for (most of) the decades on the basis of the data in the daughter languages
[Beekes, 1990: 255-257]. This allows us to put forward the proposition that the
terminus ad quem for the emergence of the non-prime numerals from ‘five’ to ‘ten’
(and consequently an early quinary system, cf footnote 18) is Proto-Indo-European.
The emergence of the non-prime numerals from ‘eleven’ onwards could then have
taken place in the transitional period between the already dialectally differentiated
Late Proto-Indo-European and the furcation into its different subphyla19. This latter
conclusion seems consistent with the finding of Hurford [1987: 82] that “[t]here can
be an early stage in the development of any numeral system when it has a small
lexicon but no syntax internal to the numeral system — no way of putting number
words together to form expressions for further numbers”; the appearance of such a
syntax20 allowed for the invention of higher numerals from ‘eleven’ onwards in the
Late-Proto-Indo-European of the economically complex Early Bronze Age21. Table 1
schematically depicts the proposed development of the Indo-European numeral
system according to relative chronology. Of course, a lot of details remain to be
elaborated.
19 Lehmann [2007: 6.6] comments on the Germanic numeral system that “[w]e may conclude that the
Germanic speakers maintained the simple economy of the Indo-European culture for some time, but
gradually expanded it, leading also to expansion of the numeral system”. The same thing could be
maintained for the speakers of Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Balto-Slavonic, Italic, Celtic, etc .
20 The syntactic strategies to combine prime and non-prime CNs to form new ones from ‘eleven’
onwards differ for every sub-phylum, for a concise overview see Winter [1992: 23].
21 One might argue that Proto-Indo-European already knew the concept for ‘one hundred’, since the
proto-form *(d)ḱm tóm can easily be reconstructed; however, its etymological meaning is ‘decade, that
which makes ten’, suggesting an initial approximate use, to convey numerosities larger than the fixed
quantity of ‘ten’ [Beekes, 1990: 258; Watkins, 2006: 67].
‘1’ to ‘4’ ‘5’ to ‘10’ ‘11’ to ‘19’ ‘20’ ≥
pre-Proto-Indo-
European
X ~ / /
Early Proto-Indo-
European
X X ~ /
Late Proto-Indo-
European
X X ~ ~
Post-Proto-Indo-
European
X X X X
Table 1: Development of the Indo-European numeral system according to relative
chronology22.
1.3. Origin of the CNP and the GNP
My proposal is that the gradual development of the Indo-European numeral system is
responsible for the rift between the prime and the non-prime CNs. As the CNs from
‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ were introduced into the numeral inventory only later on, they
were not formally analyzed as adjectives by the native speakers. Thus they were less
adapted to the nature of the pre-Proto-Indo-European language than the prime ones.
This would vouch for their indeclinable character. The decades were introduced later
still, somewhere in the already dialectally differentiated Late Proto-Indo-European
period, which is corroborated by the fact that no single proto-form of these can be
reconstructed for all of the languages. Although the decades are generally considered
to have been declinable substantives, some indeclinable versions suggest that they
were originally treated as indeclinable substantives, in conjunction with the
indeclinable CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 30]. In any
case, due to the inability of both sets of the non-prime CNs to express adjectival
concord when quantifying a noun phrase, some form of alternative syntactic link with
22 The symbols “X”, “~” and “/” signify that the concerned set of numerals has been introduced, is being
introduced or has not yet been introduced into the numeral system during the appropriate period
respectively.
the quantified noun phrase had to be established. This was achieved by the genitive
plural case of the quantified noun.
Some specialists have indirectly shown that they consider the genitive governed
by a CN in a GNP to constitute a separate semantic class , by the appellations they
have devised, e.g. “Genitiv des Gezahlten” [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 6, 38],
“Genitiv der Mengenangabe” [Meier-Brügger, 2007: 236], “genitive of the things
enumerated” [Thurneysen, 1966: 244] or even the plain “dependent genitive”
[Whitney, 1889: 183]. Yet, most of them have not made any statements whatsoever
about its semantics, as if they shun(ned) the subject. Others, such as Brugmann &
Delbrück [1911: 597-598], receded from their earlier appellation and eventually still
classified it as a partitive genitive. As was briefly discussed in the introduction of this
article, this is grafted onto the fact that the nature of the GNP has often been
wrongfully equated with that of the partitive construction. In fact, the GNP rather
reminds one of a so-called pseudo-partitive construction23. The problematic
semantics of the genitive utilized in the GNP is worth an article of its own, but as we
cannot go more deeply into it here, the statement that it acts as an alternative for
adjectival concord will suffice until further notice.
23 The basic assumption is that in a pseudo-partitive construction the “N1 establishes the unit of
measurement and N2 signifies the type of substance or entity that is being measured” [Hankamer &
Mikkelsen, 2008: 322], cf also Koptjevskaja-Tamm [2009]. Regrettably, the exact nature of the pseudo-
partitive construction is obscured by the many idiosyncratic views of specialists, which have made it
unfeasible to make a first attempt at a comprehensive differentiation of the GNP, the partitive and the
pseudo-partitive construction within the scope of this article.
2. Evolution of the CNP, the JNP and the GNP
In chapter 1, I covered the likely distribution of the CNP (required by the CNs from
‘one’ to ‘four’) and the GNP (required by the CNs from ‘five’ onwards) in Proto-Indo-
European, which is based on comparative research of the situation in its daughter
languages. So far this research has never been explicitly summarized, that is, so far,
the evolution of the distribution of both numeric phrase constructions has never been
mapped out. Therefore I will offer a concise overview of this evolution in the
following subchapter. The emphasis will lie on the older stages of each of the
subphyla, as it would be impossible to account for the situation in all of the medieval
and modern Indo-European languages, at least within the scope of this article. At the
end of this chapter, Table 3 will summarize the distribution in the examined
languages.
That language can significantly change over time is a linguistic truism.
Accordingly, the status of the Proto-Indo-European CNs changed in the language
systems of its descendants, affecting the original distribution of the CNP and the GNP.
The tension between the declinable status of ‘one’ to ‘four’ and the indeclinable status
of the remaining CNs often caused leveling in favor of the former in the long run, and
as more and more CNs became declinable24, the GNP had to yield to more peripheral
positions, i.e. higher CNs, sometimes completely disappearing altogether [Brugmann
& Delbrück, 1911: 6, 660]. The key for understanding this ousting process is the JNP,
which was already briefly mentioned in the Introduction.
The JNP proves that the strategy to use the genitive case as an alternative to
concord was not a solid one. As the numerals from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ could not be
declined in Proto-Indo-European, they failed to express any of the non-accusative
oblique cases. Neither could the quantified noun do this, as it already took the shape
of a genitive plural. As a result, probably somewhere in Late Proto-Indo-European,
24 I will only treat inflected CNs which appear in the context of a numeric phrase. The CNs could also be
substantivized for various reasons, e.g. for expressing a partitive construction such as the two of them.
The analysis of these numeral substantives is not included in this article.
the intermediary JNP construction arose, in which the CN remained indeclinable, but
all case information was handled by the quantified noun phrase. This evolution
ultimately paved the way for status shift of the CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’, as they
copied the behavior of the quantified noun phrase and acquired case endings. Hence
they could express concord and appear in a CNP. Interestingly, we can utilize Vedic
Sanskrit to reconstruct the sequence of this process, as it synchronically displays its
various stages:
(6) Daśa Te kalaśānāṃ hiraṇyānām […].
ten / you-ENCL.GEN.SG / jar-GEN.PL / golden-GEN.PL
“Ten golden jars from You (we got) […].” [RV 4.32.19]
(7) Sa suṣṭubhā Sa stubhā sapta vipraiḥ svareṇādriṃ svaryo Navagvaiḥ.
this-NOM.SG / shrill cry-INSTR.SG / this-NOM.SG / praise-INSTR.SG / seven
/ singer-INSTR.PL / voice-INSTR.SG / mountain-ACC.SG / roaring-NOM.SG /
Navagva-INSTR.PL
“You with a shrill cry, You with praise, with the seven singers, the
Navagva’s, roaring with the voice, (You have rent) the mountain.” [RV
1.62.4]
(8) Amī ye sapta raśmayas tatrā me nābhir ātatā.
that-NOM.PL / which-NOM.PL / seven / ray-NOM.PL / thither / I-
ENCL.GEN.SG / origin-NOM.PL / spread-PPP.NOM.PL
“Those seven rays, which thither my origins (are) spread.” [RV 1.105.9]
(9) Saptabhiḥ putrair Aditir upaprait pūrvyaṃ yugam.
seven-INSTR.PL / son-INSTR.PL / Aditi-NOM.SG / come into-IMPF.A.3SG /
first-ACC.SG / era-ACC.SG
“With seven sons Aditi came into the first era.” [RV 10.72.9]
If the GNP took up the subject or direct object position, the indeclinable CN did not
need a case ending, conserving the genitive plural form of its quantified noun phrase,
e.g. (3) and (6). Whenever another case was required by the discursive context, the
quantified noun phrase could express it, e.g. (7). Little by little, this behavior intruded
in all positions, even in the subject and direct object positions that originally required
a GNP, giving rise to the intermediary JNP construction witnessed in (8). The next
obvious step was that the CN itself would conform to the behavior of the quantified
noun phrase, becoming declinable in the process and requiring a CNP, such as (9). In
some cases, this ousted the GNP to higher positions, i.e. the numerals from ‘twenty’
onwards. We arrive at the following schematic representation of this leveling process:
Status of the CN Type of numeric phrase construction
Phase one Indeclinable GNP in subject and direct object positions
JNP in all other positions
Phase two Indeclinable JNP in all positions
Phase three Declinable CNP in all positions
Table 2: Leveling process of GNPs featuring a CN from the indeclinable adjectival set (‘five’ to
‘nineteen’).
As we shall see in the overview of the individual languages below, not all languages
reached phase three and encoded a complex combination of the CNP, the JNP and the
GNP. Moreover, the GNPs required by the CNs from ‘twenty’ onwards were generally
unaffected by this process, as these were introduced into the numeral inventory as
declinable substantives. Consequently, they could perfectly convey the specific
information of the genitive, dative, ablative, instrumental and locative cases if the
discursive context required these, so their quantified noun phrases could remain in
the genitive plural case.
2.1. Anatolian
The mere age of the most important language of the Anatolian subphylum, namely
Hittite, could be expected to shed important light on the problems surrounding the
numeric phrase constructions. Regrettably, very little is known about the Anatolian
numerals, due to the use of ideograms of Sumerian or Akkadian origin to denote these
numerals, obscuring the Hittite form [Sturtevant, 1933: 36-37]. What is known about
their inflected forms confirms the fully declinable nature of the CNs from 'one' to
'four’ [Friedrich, 1960: 71; Eichner, 1992: 32, 47, 64, 75]. Yet, a Common Anatolian
innovation, which caused a secondary set of CNs based on /-nt-/-stems to arise,
makes it impossible “[…] to determine whether the plain cardinals from “5” onwards
were in part indeclinable as in Proto-Indo-European” [Eichner, 1992: 91].
In Hittite, a noun determined by a CN could appear both in the singular and the
plural, but the fact that there are chaotic overlaps between the case endings of
singular and plural nouns deprives any conclusions about the status of the Hittite
numeric phrase constructions of their argumentative value [Friedrich, 1960: 117;
Sturtevant, 1933: 163]. In other words, one can justifiably state that the scarcity of
reliable Anatolian data prevents this subphylum from being a worthwile contributor
to this article.
2.2. Indo-Iranian
Vedic Sanskrit éka- ‘one’, dvá- ‘two’, trí- ‘three’ and catúr- ‘four’ reflect the Proto-Indo-
European situation, as these are declinable adjectival CNs exclusively requiring a
CNP; dvá- requires the dual [Macdonell, 1910: 308-309]. In the Rig Veda páñca ‘five’
to návadaśa ‘nineteen’ display complex fluctuations, which were treated in the
introduction of this chapter. That the different phases of the leveling process are all
synchronically present in Vedic Sanskrit shows it to be a language in full transition
[Emmerick, 1992: 164-165; Macdonell, 1910: 310]. CNs from viṃś|ti ‘twenty’
onwards are declinable substantives, like in Proto-Indo-European, and often require a
GNP, as was exemplified by (4). Nonetheless one can ascertain a growing tendency to
use these numerals as adjectives in a CNP, by analogy of the lower numerals
[Emmerick, 1992: 172-173, 176; Macdonell, 1910: 307, 310].
The fixed Pāṇinian grammar of Classical Sanskrit essentially has the same
distribution, except that ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ have completed their status shift and
exclusively appear in CNPs, with only a few exceptions proving the rule [Scharpé,
1943: 34-35; Whitney, 1889: 183].
Although the situation needs clarifying, the different Prakrit languages do not
seem to deviate from the system of Classical Sanskrit too much. The only exception is
Pāli and Aśokan Prakrit ekūnavīsati- ‘nineteen’, which has been added to the set of
the declinable substantival CNs from vīsa(ti-) ‘twenty’ onwards [Duroiselle, 1997: 62,
65; Norma, 1992: 200, 209; Oberlies 2007: 212-214]. Therefore it often appears in
GNPs, and is an interesting example of a categorical shift influenced from above.
The Avestan numerals aēuua ‘one’, duua- ‘two’, θri- ‘three’ and caθβar- ‘four’ are
identical in use with their Vedic Sanskrit counterparts [Emmerick, 1992: 291-293,
295; Jackson, 1975: 107; Reichelt, 1909: 213-214]. The ensuing CNs are problematic
to assess, due to the lack of attention of the grammars for the syntax of the numeric
phrases in which they appear. The CNs panca ‘five’ to dasa ‘ten’ are merely listed as
indeclinable adjectives. Nonetheless, three rare genitive plural forms of panca ‘five’,
nauua ‘nine’ and dasa ‘ten’ occur in a CNP, e.g. dasanąm aspanąm aojō ‘ten-GEN.PL
horse-GEN.PL strength-NOM.SG’ [Reichelt, 1909: 215]. These attestations point in the
direction of a status shift from an indeclinable to a declinable adjectival CN,
comparable with the Sanskrit and Prakrit situation. Emmerick [1992: 290] attributes
this status shift to a Proto-Indo-Iranian innovation, which applies to Indo-Aryan in
general: The fact that different sound changes caused the CNs from ‘five’ to ‘ten’ to
end with /a/ might have precipitated the association with the adjectival CNs from
‘one’ to ‘four’. Most numerals from *aēuuandasa ‘eleven’ to *nauuadasa ‘nineteen’
have to be reconstructed from the corresponding ordinal numerals, but are reported
to have been indeclinable, perhaps requiring a GNP [Emmerick, 1992: 301; Jackson,
1975: 106]. All numerals from vīsaiti- ‘twenty’ onwards are declinable substantives
and require a GNP [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 38; Reichelt, 1909: 215-216;
Skjærvø, 2003: 208-209].
2.3. Greek
Unfortunately, no numeric phrases have been attested in Mycenaean Greek
[Waanders, 1992: 385-386]. Like in Proto-Indo-European, Attic Greek heĩs ‘one’, treĩs
‘three’ and téttares ‘four’, including all cognate forms in Homeric Greek and the other
dialects, are inflected and operate in CNPs [Kühner & Blass, 1966: 621, 632; Smyth,
1968: 105; Waanders, 1992: 369, 370-371]. The situation is notoriously messy for
Attic Greek dúo and Homeric Greek dúo/dúō ‘two’. Generally this CN is indeclinable in
Homeric Greek, allowing for the use of a JNP, e.g. dúō potamȭn ‘two river-GEN.PL, i.e.
of two rivers’; in Attic Greek and the other dialects it is optionally declined, yielding
such variations as dúo hēmeraĩs ‘two day-DAT.PL’ (JNP) and duoĩn hēmeraĩs ‘two-
DAT.PL day-DAT.PL’ (CNP) [Chantraine, 1958: 260, Kühner, & Blass, 1966: 633, 635].
The CNs pénte ‘five’ to ennéa kaì enenḗkonta kaì hekatón ‘hundred ninety-nine’ are all
indeclinable and occur in JNPs, e.g. teĩkhos hept{ stadíōn ‘wall-NOM.SG seven stade-
GEN.PL, i.e. a wall of seven stades’; from diākósioi ‘two hundred’ onwards, all CNs are
treated as adjectives requiring a CNP [Nunn, 1948: 17; Smyth, 1968: 103, 105;
Waanders, 1992: 372-378]. The discrepancy between the declinable CNs from ‘one’ to
‘four’ and the ones from ‘200’ onwards on the one hand and the indeclinable block
from ‘five’ to ‘hundred ninety-nine’ is striking. Why all CNs from ‘two hundred’
onwards have changed their substantival status, inherited from Proto-Indo-European,
to an adjectival one, I cannot elucidate.
2.4. Italic
Not much is known about the numeral inventory of the different Sabellic languages.
Umbrian inscriptions show the CNs for ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ to be inflected in a CNP,
of which (10), (11) and (12) are three examples:
(10) Unu suřu pesutru fetu tikamne iuvie.
one-ACC.SG / pig (adj.)-ACC.SG / ?-ACC.SG / sacrifice-IMP.PRES.A.2SG /
Dicamnus-DAT.SG / Jupiter-DAT.SG
“Sacrifice one pig-pesutru to Jupiter Dicamnus.” [Poultney, 1959: 172]
(10) Erucom Prinuatur dur |etuto.
He-ABL.SG.CoPo / Prinovatus-NOM.PL / two-NOM.PL / go-IMP.PRES.A.3SG
“That the two Prinovati go with him.” [Wallace, 2007: 39-40]
(11) Iuve Krapuvi tre buf fetu.
Jupiter-DAT.SG / Grabovius-DAT.SG / three-ACC.PL / cow-ACC.PL /
sacrifice-IMP.PRES.A.2SG
“To Jupiter Grabovius sacrifice three cows.” [Wallace, 2007: 36]
An interesting case is desenduf ‘twelve-ACC.PL’, which is probably inflected because
the digit dur ‘two’ is the head of the compound [Poultney, 1959: 105, 107; Wallace,
2007: 27]. We cannot infer that CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ (?) operated in CNPs on
this form alone, though.
The only known CN from the Oscan language is petora ‘four’, which may have the
form of a nominative or accusative plural case, although this is not at all certain; the
form pettiur occurs on a damaged tablet without context, hence it is of little value to
us [Buck, 1904: 138; Coleman, 1992: 394; Wallace, 2007: 27]. Example (12) contains
the CN for ‘thirty’, though it is represented in the inscription by ciphers only; yet, its
syntactic context is of interest to us:
(12) Eisucen ziculud | zicolom XXX nesimum comonom ni hipid.
that-ABL.SG.LoPo / day-ABL.SG / day-GEN.PL / thirty / next-GEN.PL /
assembly meeting-ACC.SG / not-NEG / hold-SUBJ.PERF.A.3SG
“From that day, within the next thirty days, he shall not hold an assembly
meeting.” [Buck, 1904: 196]
According to Wallace [2007: 37] and Buck [1904: 196], we can see a genitive of time
at work here. Their interpretation suggests that both nesimum and XXX are adjectives
determining zicolom in a CNP. However, it is equally probable that zicolom is a
genitive plural governed by XXX in a GNP, with nesimum determining XXX; the fact
that a decade like ‘thirty’ was a substantive governing a genitive plural in Late Proto-
Indo-European strengthens the second assumption. Yet, ultimately, there is no
definite answer to this question, due to the lack of unequivocal data.
Of the Latino-Faliscan languages Faliscan provides us with nothing of relevance.
By contrast Latin, which was Europe’s main religious and scientific medium for many
centuries, proffers an absolutely copious amount of data. The CNs ūnus ‘one’, duō
‘two’ and trēs ‘three’ are all fully declinable, occurring in CNPs; an unusual evolution
is the preference of popular Latin to use indeclinable variants of duō and trēs in a JNP,
e.g. duō verbīs ‘two word-ABL.PL’ instead of duōbus verbīs ‘two-ABL.PL word-
ABL.PL’, which was probably implemented by analogy with the next set of CNs
[Coleman, 1992: 389-393; Ernout, 1945: 168-171; Kieckers, 1960: 107-108; Vineis,
2006: 298]. Quattuor25 ‘four’ to centum nōnāgintā novem ‘hundred ninety-nine’
remain uninflected and require a JNP [Coleman, 1992: 395-404; Ernout, 1945: 171-
174]. Originally indeclinable in Old Latin, the CNs from ducentī ‘two hundred’ to
nōngentī nōnāgintā novem ‘nine hundred ninety nine’ developed a declinational
pattern from Classical Latin onwards [Kieckers, 1960: 111; Vineis, 2006: 299].
Interestingly, the previous two sets of CNs share a similar status and numeric phrase
construction distribution with Greek. In all probability, this correspondence came
about by borrowing. Notwithstanding, this needs further investigation. Finally, in
older phases of Latin and in conservative speech, mīlle ‘thousand’, and its plural
counterparts mīlia/millia ‘thousands’ were declinable substantives requiring a GNP,
e.g. (13); in later phases mīlle became an indeclinable adjective requiring a JNP,
probably under the influence of centum ‘hundred’[Coleman, 1992: 407; Ernout, 1945:
174; Kieckers, 1960: 112]:
25 In contrast with Oscan, Latin has lost its declension of quattuor, brought about by “the confusion
engendered between the masculine [/feminine, AD] and neuter forms following regular phonetic
processes” [Vineis, 2006: 298].
(13) Ibi occīditur mīlle hominum.
there / fell-IND.PRES.P.3SG / thousand-NOM.SG / man-GEN.PL
“There are felled one thousand men.” [Ernout, 1945: 174]
2.5. Tocharian
The Tocharian data suffers from the same shortcomings as the Avestan data, since
specialists hardly care to describe the syntactic patterns of the numerical phrases
existing in both Tocharian languages. Turfanian ṣe and Kučean sas ‘one’ are the only
CNs that display full concord with the quantified noun phrase, whilst the numerals
from ‘two’ to ‘four’ mainly display concord for gender, sometimes for case, with the
exceptions of Kučean wi ‘two’ and Turfanian śtwar ‘four’ [Krause & Thomas, 1960:
158; Winter, 1992c: 98, 103-104, 106-107]. Thus, with some circumspection it can be
stated that Tocharian ties in with the Indo-European situation with respect to the
numerals from ‘one’ to ‘four’, which all require a CNP. The literature lists scarcely
attested instances of inflected forms of the cardinals numerals from ‘five’ onwards,
but does not provide any information whatsoever about the syntactic context in
which these appear [Krause & Thomas, 1960: 158-160; Winter, 1992c: 107-110, 112-
129]. However, a modest corpus research of Turfanian offers us the insight that the
CNs are indeclinable in the majority of the cases; from Turfanian päñ and Kučean
piś/pīś ‘five’ onwards a JNP is required:
(14) […] täprenäk täprenäk päñ pärkowäntu mäskaṃtr-äṃ.
so (much) / so (much) / five / advantage-NOM.PL / be-PRES.MP.3PL.PrS
“[…] just so the five advantages are for him.” [TO 2.18]
(15) Kāsu ñomklyu tsraṣiśśi śäk kälymentwaṃ sätkatär.
good-NOM.SG / fame-NOM.SG / strong-GEN.PL / ten / direction-LOC.PL /
spread-PRES.MP.3SG
“The good fame of the strong spreads in the ten directions.” [TO 1.1]
(16) Okät-tmāṃ puklā wrasaśśi śolaṃ Vipaśyi ñomā ptāñkät ṣeṣ.
eighty thousand / year-OBL.PL / living being-GEN.PL / life-LOC.SG /
Vipaśyin-NOM.SG / name-PERL.SG / Buddha-NOM.SG / be-IMPF.A.3SG
“For eighty thousand years in the life of living beings there was a
Buddhalord Vipaśyin by name.” [TO 3.26]
2.6. Celtic
The oldest known Goidelic language, Old Irish, is of most use to us here, since it is a
relatively richly inflected language, as opposed to the Old Welsh, Middle Cornish and
Old Breton, which had already lost all of their declensions before they were first
attested [Green, 1992: 538]. Old Irish possesses a complex set of possibilities to
construct numerative phrases, largely reflecting the Proto-Indo-European situation.
oín-/óen- ‘one’ is only used in compounds; to denote a single entity, the singular of a
noun phrase is used without an accompanying CN, e.g. claidib ‘of a/one sword’
[Green, 1992: 502, 504; Thurneysen, 1966: 176, 231]. The declinable adjectival CNs
da ‘two’, tri ‘three’ and cethair ‘four’ follow the Proto-Indo-European pattern and
display concord for case, gender and number; da requires a dual [Green, 1992: 501,
506-508; Thurneysen, 1966: 242]. The indeclinable cóic ‘five’ to deich ‘ten’ require a
JNP [Green, 1992: 509-510; Stifter, 2006: 117; Thurneysen, 1966: 243]. The pure
decades from fiche ‘twenty’ to nócha ‘ninety’, cét ‘hundred’ and míle ‘thousand’ (a
borrowing from Latin) are all fully declinable substantives which always occur in a
GNP, however, all higher CNs featuring a combination of digits with decades,
hundreds or thousands, of which ‘12’, ‘453’ and ‘3582’ are salient examples, team up
with deac ‘decade’ (< Proto-Celtic *dekamkom ‘with ten’), the genitive plural of the
decades from ‘twenty’ to ‘ninety’ and the preposition ar respectively; when utilized in
numeric phrases the quantified noun phrase takes its place after the digit, of which
the behavior conforms to the aforecited description of the CNs ‘one’ to ‘nine’, e.g. cóic
garptib deac ‘five chariot-DAT.PL decade, i.e. for fifteen chariots’ and ocht sailm
sechtmogat ‘eight psalm-NOM.PL seventy-GEN.PL, i.e. seventy-eight psalms’ [Green,
1992: 502-503; 511-512; Stifter, 2006: 117; Thurneysen, 1966: 245]. The following
examples show the general possibilities of constructing a numerical phrase existing in
Old Irish once more26, viz the CNP||JNP from ‘two’ to ‘nine’, and the GNP for the pure
decades, hundreds and thousands from ‘twenty’ onwards:
(17) Inlaat noí cairptiu dia dofunn.
yoke-IND.PRES.A.3PL / nine / chariot-ACC.PL / to-PrS.3PL / the expelling-
DAT.SG
“They yoke nine chariots for their expelling.” [OI 1]
(18) […] ocus cét mbó finn náuderg im diaid […]
and / hundred / cow-GEN.PL / white-GEN.PL / red-eared-GEN.PL / in-
PrS.1SG/ end-ACC.SG
“[…] and hundred white, red-eared cows after me […].” [OI 4]
2.7. Germanic
With reference to the distribution of the CNP, JNP and GNP, the ancient Germanic
languages have developed a fine equilibrium between conservative and innovative
features [Voyles, 1992: 243-246]. Gothic is of paramount importance for the
reconstruction of the Proto-Germanic language, and it is no different here: Gothic
proffers us a clear image of how the Proto-Indo-European numeric phrase
constructions under scrutiny have evolved in Germanic. Ains ‘one’, twai ‘two’ and
*þreis ‘three’ are fully declinable and are employed in CNPs; a plain innovation is
fidwor ‘four’, which has lost its inherited declension, just like Latin has, and is added
to the set of generally indeclinable CNs from fimf ‘five’ to *niuntaihun ‘nineteen’,
which occur in a JNP, unless they are positioned after the quantified noun phrase,
then requiring a CNP, e.g. wintriwē twalibē ‘winter-GEN.PL twelve-GEN.PL’ [Krahe,
1967: 85-87, 88; Krause, 1968: 189; Streitberg, 1906: 125]. In *twai tigjus ‘twenty’ to
*saihs tigjus ‘sixty’ the second lexeme, meaning ‘decade’ (< Proto-Indo-European
26 The data in Table 3 will be rendered according to this rather rigorous generalization for the sake of
simplicity.
*deḱús), is an inflected substantive and governs the genitive plural case in a GNP, just
like like CNs from hunda ‘hundred’ onwards; yet, sibuntēhund ‘seventy’ to
taihuntēhund ‘hundred’ are generally indeclinable substantives27, though one
example with declension is known, e.g. in niuntehundis jah niunē garaihtaizē ‘over
ninety-GEN.SG and nine-GEN.PL righteous ones-GEN.PL’ [Krahe, 1967: 89-91; Krause,
1968: 168; Streitberg, 1906: 126; WU Lu.15:7]. Other Old Germanic languages, such
as Old Saxon, Old English and Old Norse, basically display the same distribution,
although it is clear that the CNP becomes more productive due to a gradual status
shift of the indeclinable substantival substantives ‘seventy’ to ‘hundred’ to declinable
adjectives [Gallée, 1910: 233-235; Heusler, 1962: 85-87; Ross & Berns, 1992: 559;
Sievers, 1898: 171-175].
2.8 Balto-Slavonic
Of the Baltic branch, Modern Lithuanian is the most conservative language. However,
in its balanced redistribution of the Proto-Indo-European numeric phrase system it is
surprisingly innovative. The CNs víenas ‘one’ to devynì ‘nine’, i.e. all digits, are
declinable adjectives and display concord in a CNP if they are used as quantifiers
[Ambrazas, 1997: 167, 174-175; Dambriūnas, 1972: 184-185; Zinkevičius, 1996: 133-
134]:
(17) Pe sčias p dvieju nede li v s parsib st .
foot-NOM.SG / after / two-GEN.PL / week-GEN.PL / barely / wander-
PRET.REFL.3SG
“After two weeks, he barely wandered (home) on foot.” [BO 6]
All CNs from dẽ imt ‘ten’ onwards are declinable substantives which team up with the
quantified noun in the genitive plural, cf example (i) in footnote 3, however, when
27
As I explained in the introduction of this chapter, this would suggest that a JNP is used whenever the
genitive or dative case needs to be expressed. However, no such thing is discernable in the corpora.
they form multiword numerals with a digit as the final constituent, the digit becomes
the determining factor in the internal syntax of the numeric phrase, whereby a CNP
then replaces the standard GNP [Ambrazas, 1997: 166-167, 171; 175-176;
Dambriūnas, 1972: 185-186; Zinkevičius, 1996: 134-136]. Thus the imbalanced
system caused by the indeclinable status of the Proto-Indo-European CNs from ‘five’
to ‘nineteen’ has been replaced by a more transparent one in Modern Lithuanian, by
attaching adjectival case endings to the originally indeclinable CNs from ‘five’ to
‘nine’, and substantival case endings to the CNs from ‘ten’ to ‘nineteen’ [Comrie, 1992:
746-747].
The complexity of the Old Church Slavonic numeric phrase syntax is well matched
with that of Old Irish. Pretty straightforward are jedinъ ‘one’, dъva ‘two’, trije ‘three’
and četyre ‘four’, which are all declinable adjectives, capable of displaying full
concord for case, gender and number, and which logically appear in CNPs; dъva
requires a dual [Comrie, 1992: 725, 731, 738-739, 743; Nandriş, 1959: 120-122]. The
origin of the CNs from pętь ‘five’ to desętь ‘ten’, which are declinable substantives and
require a GNP, is disputed. The traditional view is that these are secondary numeral
substantives derived from the indeclinable adjectival numerals by means of the
proto-Indo-European suffix *ti-, cognate with Vedic Sanskrit paṅktí- ‘group of five’ to
daśatí- ‘group of ten’ and Old Norse fimt ‘group of five’ to tíund ‘group of ten’, among
others [Brugmann & Delbrück, 1911: 22-23; Dieter Stern, p.c.; Entwistle & Morison,
1969: 142-144; Meillet, 1906: 376]. Assuming this view would force us to exclude all
Old Church Slavonic numeric phrase constructions featuring CNs from pętь onwards:
Since the numeral substantives always govern the genitive plural case, this would
bias our account of the distribution of the CNP, JNP and GNP in the Indo-European
daughter languages. Yet, there are voices that contest this. For instance, Hirt [1927:
309-310] and Szemerényi [1960: 85-87] have pointed out that the so-called *ti-suffix
could also be the /t/ of déḱm t ‘ten’, extended to the CNs ‘five’, ‘six’ and ‘nine’ and
provided with the case endings of the i-declension (‘seven’ and ‘eight’ lack the /t/, but
do have the i-declension) , due to false analysis by the native speakers of Proto-Balto-
Slavonic, cf Comrie [1992: 746-748]. This latter view ties in well with my hypothesis
that the indeclinable status of the adjectival CNs from ‘five’ to ‘nineteen’ requiring a
GNP made these prone to status shift. As I demonstrated in the previous paragraph, in
Baltic (Modern Lithuanian), they were partly transformed into declinable adjectival
CNs (in a CNP) and partly into declinable substantival ones (in a GNP) to make the
system more stable. Old Church Slavonic apparently preferred the other way around,
by uniformly transforming them, i.e. pętь to desętь, in declinable substantival CNs.
The system for the teens, decades, hundreds (sьto, GNP) and thousands (tysę ti,
GNP) was reorganized in a way which is comparable with Old Irish, and it is
somewhat complicated. When combined with a decade, a hundred or a thousand, the
digit controls the case and number, thus jedinъ na desęte ‘one on ten-LOC.SG, i.e.
eleven’ requires a singular CNP, dъva na desęte ‘twelve’ a dual CNP, trije and četyre
na desęte ‘thirteen; fourteen’ a plural CNP, and pętь na desęte ‘fifteen’ to dъva desęti
‘two tens, i.e. twenty’ a GNP, after that, the process starts again [Andersen, 2006: 437-
438; Nandriş, 1959: 120-122].
2.9. Armenian
The numeral and numeric phrase system of Classical Armenian have gone through a
radical form of leveling, since all CNs have become declinable adjectives, which inflect
for case and number to some extent. Mi ‘one’, erku ‘two’, erek’ ‘three’ and č’ork’ ‘four’
are declined when preceding or following the quantified noun phrase, hing ‘five’ to
tasn ‘ten’ never inflect when they precede the noun phrase, but do inflect for the
genitive, dative, instrumental and ablative cases when they follow it, and finally all
CNs from metasan ‘eleven’ onwards display sporadic inflection if they follow the
quantified noun phrase [Ajello, 2006: 218; Meillet, 1913: 68-70; Winter, 1992g: 348-
353]. Thus Classical Armenian favors CNPs, with some fluctuations that have made
JNPs the second choice.
2.10. Albanian
If proto-Albanian ever inherited the Proto-Indo-European CNP/GNP distribution,
Modern Albanian has completely exchanged it for a monolithic system with nothing
but indeclinable CNs which exclusively require JNPs, even though it is an inflected
language. The only notable exception is tre ‘three’, which displays concord for the
masculine and the feminine gender [Newmark, 1982: 248-252; Pekmezi, 1908: 123-
125].
2.11 Discussion of the survey results
‘1’ to ‘4’ ‘5’ to ‘19’ ‘20’ to ‘99’ ‘100’ to
‘999’
‘1000’ ≥
Late Proto-Indo-
European
CNP JNP/GNP GNP GNP GNP
Hittite CNP / / / /
Vedic Sanskrit CNP CNP+/JNP/GNP CNP+/GNP CNP/GNP+ CNP/GNP+
Classical Sanskrit CNP CNP CNP+/GNP CNP+/GNP CNP+/GNP
Prakrit CNP CNP||GNP CNP+/GNP CNP+/GNP CNP+/GNP
Avestan CNP CNP? GNP GNP GNP
Greek CNP JNP JNP CNP||JNP CNP
Umbrian CNP CNP? / / /
Oscan CNP? / CNP? / /
Latin CNP||JNP JNP JNP CNP||JNP GNP/CNP+
Tocharian CNP JNP JNP JNP JNP
Old Irish CNP JNP GNP GNP GNP
Gothic CNP JNP+/CNP GNP JNP?/GNP GNP
Modern Lithuanian CNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP
Old Church Slavonic CNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP CNP||GNP
Classical Armenian CNP CNP+/JNP CNP/JNP+ CNP/JNP+ CNP/JNP+
Modern Albanian JNP JNP JNP JNP JNP
Table 3 – Distribution of the Concordant, Genitival and Juxtapositional Numeric Phrases for all of
the examined languages according to the set of CNs they are generally associated with28.
That all examined languages, with the exception of Albanian, honor the association
between the CNP and the CNs from ‘one’ to ‘four’ immediately catches the eye. This
strengthens the assumption that the age-old embeddedness of the prime CNs in the
(pre-)Proto-Indo-European language has caused them to become intimately
associated with the adjectival class. Otherwise, the picture yielded by the survey
provides an interesting new line of approach to the traditional dialectal classification
of Indo-European. Pertaining to the development of the Proto-Indo-European
numeric phrase constructions, Greek, Italic, Tocharian and Armenian are clearly very
innovative, as they have more or less completely removed the GNP as a numeric
phrase construction possibility. Perhaps this is an indication that the use of the
genitive as an alternative for concord was not very successful in these languages
groups, causing the speakers of these languages to gradually implement a better
system. Tocharian is the most radical language on this point, but this must have
something to do with the drastic reorganization of its nominal case system it
experienced, i.e. from fusional-flectional to agglutinative, resulting in a massive
leveling process that completely ousted the CNP and GNP. I am cautious about stating
that Albanian was very innovative as well, since we hardly have any information
about its development. Moreover, the situation of Albanian is reflected in a lot of
modern Indo-European languages which have lost the rich inflectional system of their
ancestor language(s). Describing these would require a framework of its own. The
general conservative nature of ancient Indo-Iranian morphology and syntax is
corroborated by the relatively well retained numeric phase syntax. As I mentioned
above, Vedic Sanskrit most likely directly reflects the unstable situation of Late Proto-
28 Absence of data is marked by an isolated “/”. The “+”-symbol denotes that the numeric phrase is
more frequent than its counterpart. A “?” indicates that either more research is needed or very few
data is available. When two or more numeric phrase constructions are separated by a “||”, this
designates that each of them is associated with a different subset of the presented superset of CNs; in
this case the appropriate subchapters need to be consulted for a more detailed description.
Indo-European, procured by the indeclinable adjectival CNs, which were poorly
adapted to its versatile case system. That Celtic and Germanic have preserved the
original situation as well, may astonish, certainly if one would compare them with
their modern counterparts. Even though Baltic and Slavonic have applied opposite
strategies to change the status of the problematic indeclinable adjectival CNs from
‘five’ to ‘nineteen’, the final result supports their close-knittedness.
In having a CNP, a JNP and a GNP to count noun phrases, Indo-European would
seem to be an outsider from a typological point of view. However, this is not so.
Interestingly, Classical and Standard Modern Arabic share a similar situation.
Although the rules which hold for the construction of the Arabic numeric phrases are
somewhat complex, it basically boils down to the following observations. The CNs
wāḥid ‘one and ʾiṯnān ‘two’ are adjectives displaying full concord with the quantified
noun phrases [Lecomte, 1980: 78, 108; Rydin, 2005: 330, 332, 349]. The next set,
from ṯalāṯa ‘three’ to ʿa ara ‘ten’, is declinable for case, but only agrees for opposite
gender (a typical Semitic trait known as polarity) with the quantified noun phrase,
which takes the indefinite genitive plural case; ʿaḥada ʿa ara ‘eleven’ to tisʿata ʿa ara
‘nineteen’ are forms in a fossilized accusative singular case, with the exception of ʿiṯnā
ʿa ar ‘twelve’, which can be declined, and all of these require a determined noun
phrase to be in the accusative singular case, whilst gender agreement is organized as
the CNs ‘one’ to ‘nine’ [Lecomte, 1980: 78-80, 108-109; Rydin, 2005: 334, 340-341,
349]. From ʿi rūna ‘twenty’ onwards all CNs are declinable substantives, which team
up with the quantified noun phrase in the accusative singular case (up to tisʿata
tisʿūna ‘ninety-nine’) or the genitive singular case (from miʿa ‘hundred’ onwards)
[Lecomte, 1980: 80, 109; Rydin, 2005: 343, 346, 349]. Similar constructions are also
encountered in some dialects of the most ancient known Semitic language, Akkadian,
e.g. ḫam at bēlī ‘five-CONSTR lord-GEN.SG’ or even ḫam at bēlīm ‘five-CONSTR lord-
GEN.PL’[Caplice, 2002: 77]. Whether this resemblance with the Indo-European
situation has any typological implications, and whether there are other languages that
possess similar patterns, is a matter for future research.
3. Conclusion
To think that the survey offered in this article has permanently answered the major
questions concerning the origin, the nature and the evolution of the Indo-European
Concordant, Juxtapositional and Genitival Numeric Phrases, would be to show
inappropriate overconfidence. As always, a lot of questions pertaining to form and
meaning remain. Some of the gaps in the research were already suggested in the
previous chapters. For instance, a profound research of the semantics of the GNP’s
genitive could shed light as to why it was utilized as an alternative for concord, and,
more importantly, why it eventually failed and was ousted in some languages. I
presume one will have to inquire into the nature of the Indo-European pseudo-
partitive construction when one researches the genitive, which would also offer the
opportunity to study the differences and correspondences between the GNP, the
pseudo-partitive and the partitive construction. Yet, I hope to have at least set the
stage for more thorough and specialized inquiries into these very problems in the
future. Naturally, an extensive set of corpus studies for each of the ancient Indo-
European languages would indubitably refine the survey results displayed by Table 3.
This includes inquiries into the diachronic development from ancient phases of a
language group to its modern counterparts. In this respect, the study of the numeric
phrase constructions in the North-East Iranian Ossetic language, spoken in the
Caucasus, would yield interesting results, as the speakers of this language seem to
have chosen the GNP as the main numeric phrase construction. Finally, typological
ambitions should not be neglected: One of the aims of this articles was to contribute
to a broader field of numeric phrase typology.
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4.2. Corpora
Apart from examples cited from the literature, the following electronic corpora were
used to gather additional data:
Gothic: “Wulfila Project. Gothic Bible and minor fragments”. http://www.wulfila.be/gothic/. 12/08/2011. [WU] Lithuanian: Vasiliauskiene, Virginija, Baltic Online, <http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/litol-0-X.html>. 10/08/2011. [BO] Old Irish: de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia & Slocum, Jonathan, Old Irish Online, http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/iriol-0-X.html. 03/08/2011. [OI]
Tocharian: Krause, Todd B. & Slocum, Jonathan, Tocharian Online, http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/tokol-0-X.html. 04/08/2011. [TO] Vedic Sanskrit: “Rigveda in Sanskrit und Deutsch”. http://www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/rigveda.pdf. 30/07/2011. [RV]