Arguments 203

After three thousand hits the firm closes the site and appears in another place. Three thousand hits of three minutes each, three dollars per minute.

The old forms appear haphazardly: note gj cnf he,ktq c xtkjdtrf ‘a hundred rubles per person’, from a novel of 1925, or the unusual gznbcj´n ([125]):

[125]D pfrk/xtybt ,skf gjrfpfyf ,bndf lde[ gjkrjd gj gznbcjn<gen> gt[jnbywtd, ldflwfnm<nom=acc> ckjyjd b nhbcnf<nom=acc> dcflybrjd c rf;ljq cnjhjys.

In conclusion there was noted a battle of two regiments consisting of five hundred foot soldiers, twenty elephants and three hundred cavalry from each side.

However one analyzes the oblique case used with gj, it is clearly residual. The future for all numerals (except singleton units) is the direct (nom=acc) case form.

If a complex numeral ends in a singleton unit (‘one’, ‘thousand’), the unit itself is dative; the remainder of the compound can be either oblique (genitive?) or, in a more contemporary register, the direct case form:

[126] gj ldflwfnb<gen> jlyjve<dat> he,k/	[standard]
gj ldflwfnm<nom=acc> jlyjve<dat> he,k/	[contemporary]
twenty-one rubles each

Other complex numerals now use the direct form (gj ldflwfnm<nom=acc> gznm<nom=acc> he,ktq d ltym ‘twenty-five rubles per day’), only rarely the genitive (gj ldflwfnb<gen> gznb<gen> he,ktq). Mixed forms also occur (gj itcnbcjn<gen> ltdzyjcnj<nom=acc> ctvb<gen> he,ktq ldflwfnb<gen> rjgttr d ujl ‘six hundred ninety-seven rubles and twenty kopecks per year’).

4.3.12 Quantifier (numeral) cline

The properties of numeral quantifiers can be summarized in a matrix (almost a cline) with numerals in columns, properties in rows.

Jl∫y, an almost purely adjectival quantifier, is at one extreme. At the opposite extreme, the large (mille) units vbkkbƒhl and vbkkbj´y behave almost completely like nouns, nßczxf a little less so. Between these extremes are true numerals. General numerals have generally similar properties that distinguish them from either adjectives or nouns; they could qualify as a distinct part of speech. If one invokes any sort of hierarchical constituent analysis that distinguishes between head and dependent, quantifiers in direct cases seem to be the head of a special type of argument phrase, and the quantified noun the dependent. But in oblique cases quantifiers act like modifiers of the nouns they quantify. It is a bit of an anomaly that the constituency of some phrase should depend on the case of the whole argument phrase.

Table 4.9 Numeral cline

				non-compound
				decade		compound
	single	paucal	digit; teen	compound decade	round	hundred	thousand million
	jlby	ldf/ldt, nhb	gznm,	ldfwfnm,	cjhjr, cnj,	ldtcnb	nsczxf	vbkkbjy
			gznyflwfnm	gznmltczn	ltdzyjcnj
case/number (nn) /	case sg	gen sg	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl
nom=acc (qu)		nom=acc pl /fem
internal adjective /	number-		gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl	gen pl
nom=acc (qu)	case-gender	gen pl /msc=nt
acc=gen (qu) /an nn	yes/msc;	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no
	no/fem	acc gen	acc ?gen	acc ?gen	acc ?gen	acc gen
case with gj	dat						dat	dat
gender-number (qu)	number-	gender (ldf/ldt) null		null	null	null	fem	msc
acc=gen (external adj.) /	case-gender	null
	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
an nn
qu countable?	no	no	no	no	no	no	yes	yes
case (nn) / dat loc	case sg	case pl	case pl	case pl	case pl	case pl	gen pl	gen pl
ins (qu)						(/gen pl)
inversion possible	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	unusual	no
number of case	3 / fem sg	4	3	3	2	4	5	5
distinctions (qu)	5 / msc=nt;
	pl			no yes
compound morphology	no	no	no		no	yes	no	no