Cardinal | one | two | three | four |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
Ordinal | first | second | third | fourth |
1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
In linguistics, ordinal numerals or ordinal number words are words representing position or rank in a sequential order; the order may be of size, importance, chronology, and so on (e.g., "third", "tertiary"). They differ from cardinal numerals, which represent quantity (e.g., "three") and other types of numerals.
In traditional grammar, all numerals, including ordinal numerals, are grouped into a separate part of speech (Latin : nomen numerale, hence, "noun numeral" in older English grammar books). However, in modern interpretations of English grammar, ordinal numerals are usually conflated with adjectives.
Ordinal numbers may be written in English with numerals and letter suffixes: 1st, 2nd or 2d, 3rd or 3d, 4th, 11th, 21st, 101st, 477th, etc., with the suffix acting as an ordinal indicator. Written dates often omit the suffix, although it is nevertheless pronounced. For example: 5 November 1605 (pronounced "the fifth of November ... "); November 5, 1605, ("November (the) Fifth ..."). When written out in full with "of", however, the suffix is retained: the 5th of November. In other languages, different ordinal indicators are used to write ordinal numbers.
In American Sign Language, the ordinal numbers first through ninth are formed with handshapes similar to those for the corresponding cardinal numbers with the addition of a small twist of the wrist. [1]
In English, the main ordinal series is 'first', 'second', .... It is used in a variety of rankings, including time ('the first hour of the event'), space ('the first left'), and quality ('first class cabin').
The Latinate series 'primary', 'secondary', ... is often used for importance or precedence ('primary consideration') and sequence of dependence ('secondary effect', 'secondary boycott', 'secondary industry'), though there are other uses as well ('primary school', 'primary election'). [2] The first two in the sequence are by far the most common; 'tertiary' appears occasionally, and higher numbers are rare except in specialized contexts ('quaternary period').
The Greek series proto-, deutero-, trito-, ... is only found in prefixes, generally scholarly and technical coinages, e.g. protagonist, deuteragonist, tritagonist; protium, deuterium, tritium; Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah. [3] Numbers beyond three are rare; those beyond four are obscure.
The first twelve variations of ordinal numbers are given here.
Spatial or chronological | Precedence or effect | Greek prefix |
---|---|---|
first | primary | proto- |
second | secondary | deutero- |
third | tertiary | trito- |
fourth | quaternary, quartary | tetarto- |
fifth | quinary | (pempto-) |
sixth | senary | (ecto-, hecto-) |
seventh | septenary | (ebdomo-, hebdomo-) |
eighth | octonary | (ogdo-) |
ninth | nonary | (enato-) |
tenth | decenary [4] | (decato-) |
eleventh | undenary | (endecato-) |
twelfth | duodenary | (dodecato-) |
The spatial and chronological ordinal numbers corresponding to cardinals from 13 to 19 are the number followed by the suffix -th, as "sixteenth". For multiples of ten, the same principle applies, with terminal -y changed to -ieth, as "sixtieth". For other numbers, the elements of the cardinal number are used, with the last word replaced by the ordinal: 23 → "twenty-third"; 523 → "five hundred twenty-third" (British English: "five hundred and twenty-third").
When speaking the numbers in fractions, the spatial/chronological numbering system is used for denominators larger than 2 (2 as the denominator of a fraction is "half" rather than "second"), with a denominator of 4 sometimes spoken as "quarter" rather than "fourth". This system results in "two thirds" for 2⁄3 and "fifteen thirty-seconds" for 15⁄32. This system is normally used for denominators less than 100 and for many powers of 10. Examples include "six ten-thousandths" for 6⁄10,000 and "three hundredths" for 0.03.
In Chinese, ordinal numbers are formed by adding 第 (pinyin: dì, Jyutping: dai6) before the cardinal numbers.
Cardinal | Ordinal | |
---|---|---|
1st | 一 | 第一 |
2nd | 二 | 第二 |
3rd | 三 | 第三 |
4th | 四 | 第四 |
5th | 五 | 第五 |
10th | 十 | 第十 |
72nd | 七十二 | 第七十二 |
100th | 一百 | 第一百 |
Chinese numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in written Chinese.
In linguistics, a numeral in the broadest sense is a word or phrase that describes a numerical quantity. Some theories of grammar use the word "numeral" to refer to cardinal numbers that act as a determiner that specify the quantity of a noun, for example the "two" in "two hats". Some theories of grammar do not include determiners as a part of speech and consider "two" in this example to be an adjective. Some theories consider "numeral" to be a synonym for "number" and assign all numbers to a part of speech called "numerals". Numerals in the broad sense can also be analyzed as a noun, as a pronoun, or for a small number of words as an adverb.
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, each with a fixed integer value. The modern style uses only these seven:
The Japanese numerals are numerals that are used in Japanese. In writing, they are the same as the Chinese numerals, and large numbers follow the Chinese style of grouping by 10,000. Two pronunciations are used: the Sino-Japanese (on'yomi) readings of the Chinese characters and the Japanese yamato kotoba.
English number words include numerals and various words derived from them, as well as a large number of words borrowed from other languages.
In written languages, an ordinal indicator is a character, or group of characters, following a numeral denoting that it is an ordinal number, rather than a cardinal number. Historically these letters were "elevated terminals", that is to say the last few letters of the full word denoting the ordinal form of the number displayed as a superscript. Probably originating with Latin scribes, the character(s) used vary in different languages.
Swedish is descended from Old Norse. Compared to its progenitor, Swedish grammar is much less characterized by inflection. Modern Swedish has two genders and no longer conjugates verbs based on person or number. Its nouns have lost the morphological distinction between nominative and accusative cases that denoted grammatical subject and object in Old Norse in favor of marking by word order. Swedish uses some inflection with nouns, adjectives, and verbs. It is generally a subject–verb–object (SVO) language with V2 word order.
A fraction represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, three-quarters. A common, vulgar, or simple fraction consists of an integer numerator, displayed above a line, and a non-zero integer denominator, displayed below that line. If these integers are positive, then the numerator represents a number of equal parts, and the denominator indicates how many of those parts make up a unit or a whole. For example, in the fraction 3/4, the numerator 3 indicates that the fraction represents 3 equal parts, and the denominator 4 indicates that 4 parts make up a whole. The picture to the right illustrates 3/4 of a cake.
Numeral or number prefixes are prefixes derived from numerals or occasionally other numbers. In English and many other languages, they are used to coin numerous series of words. For example:
The numerals and derived numbers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) have been reconstructed by modern linguists based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages. The following article lists and discusses their hypothesized forms.
Romanian numbers are the system of number names used in Romanian to express counts, quantities, ranks in ordered sets, fractions, multiplication, and other information related to numbers.
In typography and handwriting, a superior letter is a lower-case letter placed above the baseline and made smaller than an ordinary script. The style has traditionally been distinct from superscript. Formerly quite common in abbreviations, the original purpose was to make handwritten abbreviations clearly distinct from normal words. These could also be used to make the important words on signs larger. In technical terms, the superior letter can also be called the superscripted minuscule letter. In modern usage, with word processors and text entry interfaces, superscript and superior letters are produced in the same way and look identical. Their distinction would refer to their usage and not to their form.
Central Atlas Tamazight belongs to the Northern Berber branch of the Berber languages.
In linguistics, and more precisely in traditional grammar, a cardinal numeral is a part of speech used to count. Examples in English are the words one, two, three, and the compounds three hundred [and] forty-two and nine hundred [and] sixty. Cardinal numerals are classified as definite, and are related to ordinal numbers, such as the English first, second, third, etc.
Burmese numerals are a set of numerals traditionally used in the Burmese language, although Arabic numerals are also used. Burmese numerals follow the Hindu–Arabic numeral system commonly used in the rest of the world.
The names for numerals in Slovene are formed in a similar way to that found in other Slavic languages. An exception is the formation of numerals from 21 to 99, in which the unit is placed in front of the decade ("four-and-twenty"), as in German and Dutch. Many numerals alter their form according to grammatical case, and those from 1 to 4 also according to gender.
The Latin numerals are the words used to denote numbers within the Latin language. They are essentially based on their Proto-Indo-European ancestors, and the Latin cardinal numbers are largely sustained in the Romance languages. In Antiquity and during the Middle Ages they were usually represented by Roman numerals in writing.
In linguistics, more precisely in traditional grammar, a multiplier is a word that counts how many times its object should be multiplied, such as single or double. They are contrasted with distributive numbers. In English, this part of speech is relatively marginal, and less recognized than cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers.
The Hokkien language has two regularly used sets of numerals, a more ancient colloquial/vernacular or native Hokkien system and a literary system.
Tangut numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in the Tangut language during the Western Xia regime (1038–1227) and during the subsequent Yuan dynasty (1271–1368).