The Russian language has a fairly large number of different parts of speech. All of them perform certain functions, all of them are necessary for correct, competent speech. However, unfortunately, the vast majority of the population does not remember anything from the school curriculum. All that they know is the existence of three categories - the verb, the adjective and the noun. But other parts of speech are equally important! For example, the name is a numeral.
Definition
Imagine that we are back at school and we have a lesson in the Russian language, in which we pass the numerals. And for starters, it’s worth reminding all those who did not listen very carefully to the teacher in grades 4-6: the numeral is words that mean quantity, number (that’s why the name is). They count objects, and therefore their other name is counting words. They answer the following questions: “how much?” (five, twenty, one hundred seventy three), "which?" or "which one?" (the first, sixteenth, two thousand and eighteenth).
History tour
In a school lesson, the numeral is taught briefly and sparingly. Like, however, and everything else. No one will tell how and how the numerals were formed. Meanwhile, it is very interesting. And if the children at school were given similar information about the name of the numeral, they would write all five tests and other tests.
So, the old Russian language. It is immediately remarkable that there were no counting words as a category of speech in it. Absolutely. Despite the fact that counting, of course, had to. But for lack of special words for counting, people used the notation of parts of the human body - for example, they measured the length with an elbow, and the number with the metacarpus (previously called a hand, palm with five fingers). If it was necessary to count something more than five, they counted several times five times - as in the famous fairy tale about Ivan the Fool, who was given “seven five silver caps”, that is, seven times five each, for the horses of the golden-maned.
The very numeral names (that is, the words that are known to us today under this definition) among the inhabitants of Ancient Russia were only twelve. This included all the counting words from one to ten, as well as a hundred and a thousand. A little later, in the thirteenth century, the thirteenth numeral name appeared - forty. As for the rest, their history began much later, and the formation of such units of speech took place by transforming two words into one, combining the counting words that the ancients had.
Becoming a numeral as part of speech
For a long time, the words “one,” “two,” “three,” and so on, which the ancients had at their disposal, did not refer to countable ones, but to nouns or adjectives. This happened because there was no common attribute that these words would have exclusively and which would thereby unite them, separating them from other words. To correct this misunderstanding, it took time, after which future numerals lost the categories of gender and numbers, the value of objectivity and began to look much more like each other. All this made it possible, finally, to single out these words into one large general group, and this significant event happened already in the fourteenth century. It will be more accurate to say, then this process started, it was launched, and four centuries later, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it finally came to an end.
The first to speak of the numeral as a part of speech was, of course, the great mind of that time, Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov. It was this name and this category that the scientist called counting words in his grammar. Next, let's talk about the signs of a numeral as part of speech.
Signs of numbers
Having talked about the historical events that preceded the formation of counting words as they are at this stage, it’s worth returning to today and telling you more about the characteristics of these words. Subject: "Numeral name" is held in high school, and even those who were a round honors student are unlikely to be able to remember all their signs.
The first and most important thing to remember: all the numerals are divided into groups depending on the value. There are only two such groups (otherwise they say "ranks"), a little later they will be discussed in more detail. And how to distinguish numerals? The next sign by which this can be easily done is a change in gender, numbers and cases, like adjectives. This does not apply to all groups of numerals; and we will also return to this below. In addition, depending on the category, the numerals can fulfill any syntactic role, that is, be any member of the sentence.
Discharges
As mentioned above, by their significance, numerals are divided into two groups, but before talking about them, it’s worth saying a few words more about the fact that they can be divided into classes and structure. In this classification there are three types of numbers:
- simple (one, two, three, four, five) - they have one root,
- complex (fifty, seventy) - they have two roots,
- compound (fifty-five, one hundred and ten) - they have several words that make up one thing in common.
Returning to what is told in the school (in the 6th grade) about the numeral name, it is finally necessary to note that counting words are either collective or quantitative in meaning. Some, however, distinguish even ordinal and fractional numerals. We will talk about each of these categories below.
Cardinal numbers
These counting words answer the question “how much?” and indicate the number when counting - two balls, five dogs and the like. Numerals without nouns (just two or five) also fall into the category of quantitative, then they say that we are talking about an abstract subject.
A quantitative numeral name has case forms, but it does not have a gender or number. The latter is true for all countable numbers in this category, except for the number one (it changes in every way), as well as the numbers two (there are female and masculine gender) and one and a half (the same). Those who care about how to distinguish numerals from other parts of speech can pay close attention to the declension of this category: it differs for different words. So, for example, words from one to four are inclined as adjectives, but from five to twenty (and thirty in addition to them) - as feminine nouns ending in a soft sign (in other words, relating to the third declension). Words such as fifty are inclined as follows: each of the parts is subject to change (we remember now that such words have two roots, that is, two parts). By the same principle, not only all complex, but also all composite numerals are changed . And one hundred, forty and ninety are generally inclined in a special way: of all the case forms, they have only two (nominative and accusative), which are used in six cases.
Collective numbers
Collective numerals are much like quantitative ones. They are called collective because they define a certain amount as a whole, as if collecting it in a pile: five cars are a quantitative numeral, but five guys are already collective. According to the rules, the word “both” with the form “both” refers to such countable words, despite the fact that some scholars are inclined to attribute them to pronouns. The collective name of the numeral as part of speech has several characteristic features: firstly, such words are not used with feminine nouns - never! Secondly, they are inclined as plural adjectives.
Ordinals
Some of them are distinguished from the category of quantitative ones. Then how to distinguish numerals from others? In general, quite simple. These counting words do not just indicate the quantity, they call the order in the account, that is, indicating a single item, indicate its serial number. This category includes words such as the first, second, thirteenth, forty-sixth, ninetieth and the like. As you might guess, ordinal numbers do not answer the question “how much?”, But the question “what?” or "which?"
They resemble adjectives in that they vary in numbers, cases, and childbirth. Like this category, they are inclined, which gives the right to many linguists to attribute these countable words in general to adjectives. An interesting feature that distinguishes ordinal numbers from others: if you need to change the case of a composite numeral, for example, the serial number of the year is two thousand and eighteen, then only the last word will be inclined (in this case, the eighteenth), the rest will remain unchanged.
Fractional numbers
Not all distinguish these counting words in a separate category. However, perhaps this makes sense for those who do not understand how to distinguish numerals from one group from another. Fractional numerals cannot be confused with anything else - after all, they do not call integers, but fractional numbers: five-eighths, six-elevenths, and so on. Nevertheless, their meaning coincides with the quantitative ones, so we can say that fractional counting words are a kind of quantitative “colleagues”.
Uncertain quantitative numbers
Very rare linguistic scientists distinguish even the fifth category of numerals. They call them indefinitely quantitative and desperately argue with those who relate these words to pronouns. We are talking about such words as a few, a little, a little, a lot, a lot, so many others. Thus, indirectly, the number of necessary items is still named (“buy a few pears” means a couple of things), but the right number is indicated directly. A few is how much? A lot? A little? This uncertainty, many linguists believe, and necessitates the selection of the fifth group, which will contain similar words, different from others.
Nevertheless, these words have a lot of features that are in no way inherent in the numerals. For example, they are in the form of a comparative degree, cannot be inclined, and are also subjectively evaluated (five is five for all, and a little or a lot - each has its own). Due to this fact, these words have a lot in common with adverbs, nouns and pronouns.
The mystery of some numerals
We continue our Russian language lesson in grade 6. The topic is "Numeral Name". Time for entertaining stories - enough to give boring definitions, it’s better to learn a little about how some numerals happened before and what they meant before.
The first counting number, the origin of which must be remembered, is seven - a special, mysterious for many, both in antiquity and to this day. Among Christians, this number was considered holy, and the Holy Scriptures recognized seven deadly sins, transmitted to the seventh generation. For the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, the seven was also an unusual number. They perceived it as a synthesis of the three and the four, where the first was the basis of life, the family — namely, three constitute the basis of the family: mother, father and child — and the second symbolized the cardinal directions and direction of the wind.
The numeral forty mentioned above , which appeared in the lexicon of the ancients somewhat later than the first twelve counting words, had the first meaning “bag”, and the second - “shirt”. Even now, a shirt, mainly for men, is often called a shirt. But the numeral one keeps its score from the Slavic word one, that is, one.
The numeral two came most likely from the ancient Indian language. In it, it sounds almost the same - “duva”. The numeral four (which, incidentally, in China, Korea and Japan do not like, considering it related to death) has a root from the Latin language - “kuattuor”. Incidentally, it is common with such words as a square and a quartet - not without reason the square has four corners, and in the quartet - four people. The numeral eight has changed little: earlier it sounded like an “eight,” that is, about seven, following the family; and ten owes its origin to the Latin word "decam." And finally, the million, which appeared thanks to Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, which combined the Italian word “milli” (thousand) and “onet”, translated into Russian as the suffix “seek”, indicating something big, huge. So a million is nothing but a thousand.
Entertaining games with numbers
It is this part of speech that is very often used in all kinds of puzzles and riddles for babies. For example, in such here: i100ria, 7ya, 100rozh, me100, 3umf, s3zh, 100yka, po2l, vi3na and so on.
Very often, counting words come across in the names of films. You won’t remember everything! “Two Captains” and “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, “Three Plus Two” and “Two Fates”, “Only Old Men Go to Battle” and “Two: Me and My Shadow” ... The list goes on and on, and it covers only cinema . But no less than this list in the literature. More and more! “Three Little Pigs” and “Three Musketeers”, “One Day by Ivan Denisovich” and “Wolf and Seven Little Kids”, “Sign of Four” and “Fourth Height” - both our and foreign authors and directors like to use numbers in their works.
Proverbs and sayings with numbers
They are also a dime a dozen. Moreover, if you pull yourself hard, you can recall the sayings containing a variety of numerals. But offhand, as a rule, those who narrate about one or two things come to mind: about two boots that are a pair, or about two hares that you don’t have to chase at the same time, or about one warrior who is not in the field a warrior at all ... Of course, the immortal phrase about one, which is for everyone, and about the ear from which everything flies out, should be included in the same list ... In general, if you sit and think, there will be a great many such sayings in your memory. We really just don’t think about how often and how much we use parts of it in our speech.
Funny puzzles with numbers
Since our Russian language lesson is entertaining, you can’t do without it without riddles. Of course, not just any - those that contain numbers. They are also abundant in our speech. For instance:
- Five closets - one door (glove).
- The raven threw himself at a hundred cities, at a thousand lakes (thunder).
- There is a house with twelve windows, each window has four girls, each girl has seven spindles, each spindle has a different name (year, months, weeks, days).
Interesting Facts
- In antiquity, instead of the numeral "ten thousand" they used the word "darkness", borrowed from Turkic peoples. Ten million were called ravens, but one hundred was called a deck.
- Numbers on paper for a long time were denoted not by numbers, but by letters in alphabetical order.
- Linguists can not agree on the words thousand, a million and a billion. Some classify them as nouns, while others still classify them as numerals.
- A little bit about spelling: words like fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, sixteen, eighteen do not have a soft sign in the middle - unlike words like these: fifty, sixty and so on (this takes place in the subtopic dedicated to the numeral in grade 6 )
- Numerals combine the attributes of a noun and an adjective.
- There are two forms of the same numeral - zero and zero. Use both in the letter and in the speech both can be used.
- In French, the name of the numeral seventy is translated into Russian as “sixty and ten,” and the numeral of eighty as “four times twenty.” As for the numeral ninety, his translation is even more interesting: "four times twenty and ten." Such a funny manner, not only among the French, is quite strange and unusually translated into our language and numerals from Georgian and Danish. In Danish, for example, the numeral seventy translated into Russian literally means the following: "halfway from three times twenty to four times twenty."
- Particle “not” with numerals is written separately.
- The name of the ninth month of September comes from the Latin numeral "Septem", which is translated into Russian as "seven." The same with the names of October, November and December - they were formed from the Latin numerals eight, nine and ten, respectively. The reason for this is the celebration of the New Year at that time in March.
- Numeral zero in Russia is not a natural number, but in Europe - on the contrary.
- Due to the fear of the number thirteen, in some countries there is no thirteenth floor in houses, or rather, its designation - after the button twelve, fourteen immediately go to the elevator. By the way, about the same story with the number four in Japan, China and Korea - they miss the fourth floor in the houses.
- The largest numeral is centillon (unit and six hundred zeros).
- The ninety numeral , according to an unconfirmed hypothesis, came from the phrase “nine to one hundred,” and not “nine for ten,” by analogy with other numerals of this kind.
Numerals - a very interesting, entertaining and fascinating material for study. It is a pity that at school the entire discussion of any topic is aimed, by and large, only to correctly write a dictation. The numeral name, meanwhile, after the written control will not be studied anymore, and all the jagged ones will instantly disappear from the children's heads. If in educational institutions they approached business properly and knew how to interest children, most adults, even at fifty, would remember what a numeral is and what its main signs are. I would like to hope that someday it will be so!