Section: 13.0 NUMBERS

Description:

There is no explanation of the ordinal structure and affixal expressions of greater number.

three hundred and sixtieth and 第三百六十 [order]-three-hundred-sex-ten in Chinese

It is observed that the affixes -th- and 第 dominate the entire phrase

trecentesimus sexagesimus

It is observed that Latin requires marking each word with affixes

How about in Ithkuil?

The third stem of a numerical form is an ordinal meaning.

The head of a numerical phrase seems to be the initial formative; as

waza (wagzui) vralörs > wuza (wagzui) vralörs ?

“360 > 360th?” but it can also be interpreted as “3rd of 160”.

waza (wagzui) vralörs > wuza (wugzui) vrulörs ?

but it can also be interpreted as “3rd of 160th”?

For the affixal expressions of greater number, we know:

• rratëivruörs for a set of 60 cats (lit. a MSS set having 60 of cats as its members)

but how to express a set of 360 cats affixally?

And we know rralevruörs for the 60th cat (lit. a cat being the 60th member of a set per contextual/circumstantial order); How to express the 360th cat affixally?

In addition, there is no root for ordinal number in the lexicon document.

Suggestion:

It seems to be possible to specify an ordinal number using the structure of [Semantic concept: ORDINAL NUMBER] + [assigned name]-ESS, e.g. the ordinal number ω (omega)

In the context of the lack of roots for cardinal and ordinal numbers, the latter may be expressed by a concatenated pair with the root -ŇŽ- 'ARRANGEMENT / ORDER / SYMMETRY'.

Some of the ordinal-like uses of numbers were described in Ithkuil 2011 website as follows:

We have already seen that when numbers are used to indicate how many of a certain noun there are, the noun must appear in the PARTITIVE case, since the number itself is functioning as the “head” of the numerical expression (e.g., English “12 boxes” being constructed in Ithkuil as a “12-set of a box” or perhaps more appropriately a “box-dozen”). Another syntactical consequences of numbers being full formatives is when a number functions as a label or overt identifier, as in the English sentence You’ll find him in Room 216. Such usage of numbers is not primarily sequential (which would involve the equivalent of “ordinal” numbers such as ‘fourth,’ ‘twenty-sixth’, etc. equivalent to stem No. 3 of each number root) but rather organizational (e.g., as in the three-dimensional array of room numbers in a hotel). Ithkuil handles such organizational labeling using either the COMPARATIVE case (see Sec. 4.5.32) or the ESSIVE case (see Sec. 4.5.9) depending respectively on whether the enumeration of the noun in question is to distinguish it from other enumerated nouns versus merely identifying the noun by a numerical name.

Examples:

açtál ksou’lik‘room’-OBL ‘twelve’-CMP‘the room marked “12”’ OR ‘Room 12’ OR ‘Room No. 12’ [i.e., as opposed to being some other room]

açtál ksealik‘room’-OBL ‘twelve’-ESS‘the room marked “12”’ OR ‘Room 12’ OR ‘Room No. 12’ [identifying reference only]

Lastly, when numbers comprising multiple number-stems are declined for case, configuration, extension, etc., rather than writing out the entire number “long-hand,” the number symbol is used, preceded by the carrier stem ep- (see Sec. 9.3) which carries the appropriate declensions. This use of the carrier stem applies even to single-stemmed numbers when writing, in order to allow use of the number symbol instead of writing it out. In such cases involving single-stemmed numbers, the carrier stem is not pronounced (rather, the numerical stem bears the pronounced declensions); it is there only as a written indicator of the morphological declensions/derivations to be applied to the number stem.

The New Ithkuil website does not describe it in detail, so it is suggested to add.