THE NUMERAL
The numeral as part of speech is characterized by: ü its lexico-grammatical meaning of “number”; ü the category of numerical qualification represented in opposemes like: seven – seventh; ü its unilateral combinability with nouns: three children; ü such typical stem-building suffixes as –teen, -ty; ü its functioning as an attribute.
The (a) lexico-grammatical meaning of “number” is not to be confused with (b) grammatical meaning of “number”: 1. (a) is the generalization of a multitude of lexical meaning of individual numerals: five, ten, etc. (b) is the generalization of only two grammatical meaning “singular” and “plural”. 2. boys – indefinite plurality - grammatical, twenty, fifteen – definite plurality – lexico-gramattical. 3. grammatical meaning the “plural” of nouns – relative, dependent and indirect. the lexical “plural” of a numeral (eight) is not relative, is correlated with the “singular” one.
NUMERALS CARDINAL (one, five, two) ORDINAL (first, fifth) numeral quantity numerical order üA. I. Smirnitsky is of the opinion that only cardinal numerals form a separate part of speech, whereas ordinal numerals are adjectives.
Language facts don’t support it: each cardinal numeral has a corresponding ordinal one; fife – fifth ü both cardinals and ordinals qualify substances quantitatively; ü cardinals often denote numerical order like ordinals; lesson five = the fifth lesson ü only numerals have the suffix –th. ü -th is the only suffix in Eng. embracing all the words of a part of speech. except of: one, two, three ü the relation between ten – tenth resembles the relation between boy – boy’s. As words of the type the boy’s type are mostly used in the function of attributives, they might also be declared adjectives. ü
ten – tenth – form an opposeme of the grammatical category of numerical qualification. they are opposed only by the opposition of the zero morpheme in ten and the –th in tenth. meaning of the zero morpheme – “numerical quantity” meaning of –th – “numerical order” is relative and dependent on the lexical meaning of the word. quarter, zero, nought, gross, score have no ordinal opposites, but possess plural ones, they are nouns, not numerals.
Numerals: form combinations with nouns; ü usually precede the nouns they modify; ü associated with countable nouns; ü are not modified by other words. ü According to the stem structure: simple or root : one, two, three, … ü derivative numerals + suff –teen (13 -19), -ty (20 -90); ü compound numerals: (21 -99) ü composite: (903) ü
Numerals are easily substantivized, acquiring noun features. They may have: ü lexico-grammatical meaning of “substance”; the “plural”; the suff. –s; left-hand connection with articles, prepositions; Used in the functions of objects. ü ü ü “……. , the tens to the tens, the hundreds to the hundreds, etc. ”