KASH: MORPHOLOGY

3. Numbers --- 4. Particles

3. Numbers

Kash has a decimal system. The numbers (0-15) are written:

The cardinal numbers (most of which have alternate short forms used in serial counting and compounds) are:

zero tanda; one mesa, mes; two ro; three sila, sit; four ha; five nim; six keli, ket; seven sor, sot; eight fanu, fan; nine sana, san; ten mepola (< mes+fola. The change l > t in sila, keli reflects an old rule.)

Numbers are written as in our languages, units at the right, tens to their left, then hundreds, etc. In whole numbers of five or more digits, a period-like marks sets off groups of three. The decimal point (called kik) is a comma-like mark, and a plain decimal like .56 always includes pre-decimal 0--

The teens are compounds of fola with the short-form units; the unit is stressed-- since these are written as one word, they constitute exceptions to regular penultimate stress (not indicated in the writing system):

eleven folamés; twelve folaró; thirteen folasít; fourteen folahá; fifteen folaním; sixteen folakét; seventeen folasót; eighteen folafán; nineteen folasán

Multiples of ten use the short-form + fola, with hardening of f > p when the unit ends in a consonant: 20 rofola, 30 sipola, 40 hafola, 50 nipola, 60 kepola, 70 sopola, 80 fapola, 90 sapola. (Speakers are tending to use -pola in all forms.) Between multiples, one simply adds the unit: 21 rofola mesa ~mes, 35 sipola nim, 99 sapola sana ~san, etc.

'Hundred' is the short form + rongo: 100 merongo, 200 lorongo (note r-r dissimilation), 300 sitrongo, 400 harongo, 500 nimbrongo, 600 ketrongo, 700 sotrongo, 800 fandrongo, 900 sandrongo. '444' would be harongo hafola ha, '957' sandrongo nipola sor ~sot.

'Thousand' is the short form + amba, but note that sila/keli retain their -l, sor its -r, while ha adds an -l- (presumably influenced by preceding silamba but also to prevent elision of the a-a sequence): 1000 mesamba, 2000 rowamba, 3000 silamba, 4000 halamba, 5000 nimamba, 6000 kelamba, 7000 soramba, 8000 fanamba, 9000 sanamba, 10,000 mepola amba, 20,000 rofola amba (here, the a-a's may elide-- spoken mepolamba etc.). 100,000 is merongo amba, and so on.

'Million' is ambraka (< amba + raka lit. 'big thousand'), with forms as for the thousands: millions mesambraka, rowambraka, silambraka, halambraka...sanambraka; ten millions mepola ambraka, rofola ambraka...kepola ambraka, etc.; hundred milions merongo ambraka...harongo ambraka...sandrongo ambraka, etc.

'Billion' (1000 million, 10⁹) is pambraka (contracted < amba ambraka 'thousand million'); at this point the units are usually used in their full form: mesa pambraka, ro pambraka...nim pambraka (may be pronounced nimbambraka)...sana pambraka; mepola pambraka, rofola pambraka...; merongo pambraka, lorongo pambraka...sandrongo pambraka etc.

For 'trillion, quadrillion, quintillion' terms adapted from Gwr are used:

- trillion: cimakoñ (< ji ma kong lit. 'thousand vast four', i.e. 1000⁴ in their system, 10¹² in ours)
- quadrillion: cimanji (< ji ma dzi 'thousand vast five'-- their 1000⁵, our 10¹⁵)
- quintillion: cimaho (< ji ma ho, their 1000⁶, our 10¹⁸)

Beyond this, as the Kash say, only children and bankers want names; the scientific community expresses very large numbers as powers of ten, as we do. There are popular terms, cima-cima or praka-praka, roughly equivalent to "jillion, gazillion".)

In counting, the number precedes the noun, which is not marked for plural-- e.g. nim lero '5 days'. There is also an uncommon construction noun in the genitive + number-- lerowi nim-- it is formal and rather literary and seldom used in speech. It is possible to have a plural noun or pronoun, but the meaning changes: cf. ro kaçut (iya) '(the) two men' (there are just two) -- ro kaçutila 'two of the men' (indefinite, out of a group of men) -- kaçutila ro (nila) 'the two men'(definite, out of a group)' -- or ro hila, sila/sit nila indefinite 'two of you, three of them' (of a group)-- and (plural) pronoun + number-- hila ro, nila sila/sit definite 'the two of you, the three of them' (of a group). There are alternative ways of expressing this, better left to the Syntax section.

'Number + time(s)' (i.e. one time or once, twice/two times, thrice... etc.) is expressed by adding anju to the short form units up to 'nine'-- mesanju, rowanju, sitanju, hatanju (note the -t-!)...fananju, sananju; for 'ten times' and above, full forms are used-- mepola anju 'ten times', merongo anju 'a hundred times'-- rongo-rongo anju 'hundreds of times' etc.

Ordinal numbers are formed with the prefix ku- (apparently < kunjo 'divide') to the full forms of the units-- kumesa, kuró, kusila, kuhá, kuním, kukeli, kusór, kufana, kusana, while 'tenth' is kufola. Their status is adjective-like-- they follow the noun, as açurak kuha 'the fourth month' (but they do not take the person or tense markers); and with the addition of forms of iya they may also function as nouns, as yale iya kunim 'he/she was the fifth (one)'. Colloquially, as usual, and in rapid counting, the short forms are used-- kumés...kukét, kusót etc. For '(the) first (not in a sequence), first of all, the first thing is...' an alternative is angasi(ni) ('beginning' < kasi 'begin'). Above 'tenth', the number alone is used-- karun folaro 'the twelfth karun', lelo/leyo rofola ro 'the 22nd (day)'(r-r dissimilation!). Street names also used the simple number: ratu fan(u), ratu mefola '8th Street, 10th Street'. In writing, ordinals may be indicated with k-, as k-1, k-50, k-1,000,000.

The ku- form is also used for fractions (except 1/2, which is mesangunjo): 1/3 mesa kusila ~kusit, 5/7 nim kusor ~kusot etc. But with fractions, ku- continues to be used for all numbers, all the way up, though in practice large fractions are written in numerical form: so 7/1000 is read sor kuwamba, 1/1,000,000 or mesa k-1,000,000 or 0.000001 are read mesa kuwambraka. The decimal form can also be read kik ta-ta-ta-ta-tat mesa (multiple zeros 'tanda' reducing to ta(t) in just this case).

Distributive numbers are formed by full or partial reduplication (partial is more common and less emphatic): mesa-mesa ~memesa 'one by one, each one', loro 'two by two, each two', etc. up to fola-fola ~fofola 'by tens, each ten'; if it is necessary to count higher, generally only full reduplication would be used. The forms rongo-rongo 'by hundreds, hundreds of'', amba-amba ~apamba 'by thousands' exist-- beyond this pando 'many' is used: pando ambraka 'millions of...', and note pando (i) pando pambraka 'billions and billions....'; it is also possible to use pipinal 'each, every'-- pipina(l) ro 'each two'. The reduplicated numbers + a plural possessive suffix may be used to refer to an entire group: loromim 'both of us, you and I', sila-silani ~sisilani 'all three of them' etc.-- it is uncommon though possible with higher numbers: apambahi 'thousands of you', añoloç pando pambrakani 'stars by the billions'.

Words denoting periods of time may also be reduplicated (usually fully) in this way: lero-lero 'every day', nasa-nasa 'every minute'-- similarly for tiki 'second', aro 'hour', ondre 'night', açurak 'month', pehan 'year'. Colloquially, some of these are reduced to partial reduplications-- lelero, nanasa, titiki, alaro, otondre (irreg.), açaçurak, pepehan. But sotero 'week' is irregular: sote-sotero ~sosotero 'weekly', with colloquial trelo 'week' > tetrelo. Again, pipinal may be used instead: pipinal lero, pipinal pehan, pipinal sotero etc.

Other numerical quantifiers

Some quantifiers behave like numbers in that they usually precede the noun they modify, and among these are: yuno 'all', tapes 'no, not one...', tando 'little; few', pando 'much, many', picik 'a little bit', pipinal 'each, every', tapat 'some, any'. But they may also take plural nouns; they may be postposed as adjectives; and some may function as verbal modifiers. See the Syntax.

4. Particles

The native grammarians call these hambiyaç 'pieces', and distinguish hambiyaç lipat 'captured pieces' from hambiyaç pefa 'free, or loose, pieces'. The former we would call bound morphemes-- the various affixes that have already been enumerated, plus a few others that have not. The 'loose pieces' are a mixed bag of sentential modifiers, adverbials, modals, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.

The "captured pieces" we have already seen are the verbal tense, person, imperative, and derivational affixes, the noun case and possessive suffixes and derivational prefixes, the diminutive suffixes, and the honorific, pejorative and negative prefixes. In addition, there is a question marker -ka, and three verbal modifiers -pi, -po, -nu, which will be discussed in the Syntax.

"Free pieces" are essentially all those words that cannot be classified as nouns, verbs or numbers. Discussion of these is best left to the Syntax. But we can list many of them here:

1. words like hayi, tayi 'yes, no' and their emphatic forms nakayi, nandayi; ta ~tak 'not'; yanda 'do not...'

2. various adverbials-- of location: ritan, riyan, riyun 'here, there, yonder', yuñurun 'everywhere'. Of time: lunda 'once, ever', talunda 'never', anje, cis 'still, yet, again', tayanju, tiyanju 'now, then', sapat, koprat 'tomorrow, yesterday', tayondre 'tonight', and others; of quality/quantity: lavi 'more', krat 'most', sut 'too', niya 'very', niya-niya ~niniya 'extremely', omban 'less', imik 'least', kami 'even', pañ ~payi 'how...! what a...!', timbani 'enough', sambat 'so..., so much' and others.

3. conjunctions: i 'and', omo ~mo, mowa 'but', iti 'or', ende 'and then..., and so...', pun 'if, whether', kambun 'even if, although', ombi 'for, since, because', aloni 'therefore', eme 'also', anju 'when', are ~re 'that...; who, which' and others.

4. prepositions: ri locative 'in, at, on, to' (depending on case), alo 'from, out of', yam 'with', yambit 'by means of'. Many prepositional expressions are formed with ri+noun(dat/acc) + noun object, as ri nihine (dat.) + noun 'above (noun)', ri nihin (acc.) + noun 'on top of (noun)'; ri vunuwe (dat.) + noun 'in the direction of ~toward (noun)'. A few nouns (usually with -ni) also have prepositional uses-- uçoñi (uçom+ni) 'for, for the use of...', as well as some verbs, especially umit 'to use ~by means of, with (instrumental)', and inga 'to lack ~without'.

5. interrogatives: the yes-no question word aka; yapan 'when?', kambralun 'how (manner)?', kañale 'how (condition)?', riyeni, riyene, riyena resp. 'from where, to where, at where?', ongar 'why?', fiyan 'how much/many?', and some corresponding--

6. indefinites: kayu, (i)yuni 'something', kariyanju 'sometime', katrelo 'someday', kapralun 'somehow'-- karike 'someone' is declinable; kaç 'person' can also be used in this sense.

Interjections

A list of the more common interjections. Note that many have final stress (the vowel is usually drawn out, as are single open vowels, as in a, he, ki, na, u), and a few have normally impermissible final consonants.

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