In the counting system used in the
Cornish language, the numerals (number words) below 100 are based on twenties: so numbers from 21–39 are "''x'' on twenty", 41–59 are "''x'' on two twenty", numbers from 61–79 are "''x'' on three twenty", and numbers from 81–99 are "''x'' on four twenty". 40 is "two twenty", 60 is "three twenty", and 80 is "four twenty". This is very similar to counting in the Welsh language. It is also similar to the
French numerals for 60–99.
Numerals
Variation in form
There is some syntactically and phonologically triggered variation in the form of numerals. There are, for example, masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two" (' and '), "three" (' and ') and "four" (' and '), which must agree with the
grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
of the objects being counted. Numerals change as expected according to normal rules of
consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.
Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all ...
; some also trigger mutation in some following words.
Use with nouns
The singular form of the noun is used with numbers, but for larger numbers an alternative form is permitted, where ' (
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
, "of") with the plural noun follows the number. Except where using this plural form, the noun is placed before any parts of the number that are added using ' ("on") or ' ("and") in the number system.
Nouns are also mutated following many numbers. ' triggers the soft mutation of feminine nouns, but not masculine nouns. It also causes the word ''dydh'' "day" to become ''unn jydh'' "one day". ' and ' both trigger the soft mutation. ' and ' trigger the aspirate mutation. The part of the number immediately preceding the noun will determine any mutation of the noun. In the plural form with ', the soft mutation is used as is normal after '.
The following example with ("cat") illustrates several of these points:
*
:''Two cats''
*
:''Twenty-three cats'' (literally "Three cat on twenty")
*
:''Seventy-eight cats'' (literally "Eighteen cat and three-twenty")
* ''or''
*
:''Three hundred and forty eight thousand, six hundred and sixty nine cats'' (348,669)
*
*
:''A million cats''
References
*Williams, N. ''Desky Kernowek'' (Evertype, 2012)
*Brown, W. ''A Grammar of Modern Cornish'' (Kesva an Taves Kernewek, 2001)
{{Cornish language
Cornish language
Numerals