Numeral

is the sentence element used to express an abstract numerical value, a numerical determination,

In linguistics, the terms representing numbers can be classified according to their use:

Cardinal numerals: describe quantity - one, two, three.

Cardinal numbers refer to the size of a group. If a number is in the range 21 to 99, and the second digit is not zero, one should write the number as two words separated by a hyphen. In English, the hundreds are perfectly regular, except that the word hundred remains in its singular form regardless of the number preceding it (nevertheless, one may on the other hand say "hundreds of people flew in", or the like). So too are the thousands, with the number of thousands followed by the word "thousand". For numbers above a million, there are two different systems for naming numbers in English - the long scale (decreasingly used in British English) designates a system of numeric names in which a thousand million is called a ‘‘milliard’’ (but the latter usage is now rare), and ‘‘billion’’ is used for a million million; -the short scale (always used in American English and increasingly in British English) designates a system of numeric names in which a thousand million is called a ‘‘billion’’, and the word ‘‘milliard’’ is not used. There are also special names for certain cardinals – 0 (naugh, zero), 1 (ace in golf), 1000 (grand for money)…

Ordinal numerals: describe an order - first, second, third.

Ordinal numbers refer to a position in a series. Common ordinals are built with the suffix –th. Compounds are formed by combining a cardinal with an ordinal unit.

Multiplicative numerals: describe repetition - once, twice, thrice

Distributive numerals: expresses a group of the number specified: In pairs, by the dozen.

Partitive numerals: expresses a fraction - half, third, quarter.

Fractional: 2/3 (two-thirds). One may also say for 1/2 "one over two", for 5/8 "five over eight", and so on. This "over" form is also widely used in mathematics. (This form is not common in British English.)

Notional and formal words

According to the view held by some grammarians, words should be divided into two categories on the following principle: some words denote things, actions, and other extralinguistic phenomena (these, then, would be notional words), whereas other words denote relations and connections between the notional words, and thus have no direct bearing on anything extralinguistic (these, then, would be the formal words, or form words). Authors holding this view define prepositions as words denoting relations between words (or between parts of a sentence), and conjunctions as words connecting words or sentences. However, this view appears to be very shaky. Actually, the so-called formal words also express something extralinguistic. For instance, prepositions express relations between things. Cf., e. g., The letter is on the table and The letter is in the table: two different relations between the two objects, the letter and the table, are denoted by the prepositions. In a similar way, conjunctions denote connections between extralinguistic things and phenomena. Thus, in the sentence The match was postponed because it was raining the conjunction because denotes the causal connection between two processes, which of course exists whether we choose to express it by words or not. They are, in so far, no less notional than nouns or verbs.

Now, the term "formal word" would seem to imply that the word thus denoted has some function in building up a phrase or a sentence. This function is certainly performed by both prepositions and conjunctions and from this point of view prepositions and conjunctions should indeed be singled out.

But this definition of a formal word cannot be applied to particles. A particle does not do anything in the way of connecting words or building a phrase or a sentence.

There does not therefore seem to be any reason for classing particles with formal words. If this view is endorsed we shall only have two parts of speech which are form words, viz. prepositions and conjunctions. ¹

It should also be observed that some words belonging to a particular part of speech may occasionally, or even permanently, perform a function differing from that which characterises the part of speech as a whole. Auxiliary verbs are a case in point. In the sentence I have some money left the verb have performs the function of the predicate, which is the usual function of a verb in a sentence, In this case, then, the function of the verb have is precisely the one typical of verbs as a class. However, in the sentence I have found my briefcase the verb have is an auxiliary: it is a means of forming a certain analytical form of the verb find. It does not by itself perform the function of a predicate. We need not assume on that account that there are two verbs have, one notional and the other auxiliary. It is the same verb have, but its functions in the two sentences are different.

NON-TRADITIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONPOUND SENTENCE

For the first time the status of Compound Sent was revised at the beginning of the 20^th century by the Dutch scholar Kruisinga: in case of coordination Clauses do not presuppose each other because each of them is equal to a complete independent sentence, -> we deal with a string of simple sentences but not with a kind of a composite sentence.

In the 60s this idea was developed by soviet scholar Lubov Lazarevna Iofik. She innumerated a number of cases when the mode of coordination participates in producing a composite sentence. First of all, this takes place if 2 coordinated Clauses have a subordinate Cl in common which is related to both of them (e.g.: Because he was old & deaf, nobody liked him & nobody respected him).

The 2^nd case: when coordination participates in deriving a composite sentence is of an opposite character. Here 1 principle Cl has 2 homogeneous coordinated Cl (e.g.: He lived where he chose & how he chose).

Sometimes, the part in common uniting predicative groups can be equal not to a Cl but to a phrase (e.g.: He couldn`t, he wouldn`t believe (part in common) it).

In other cases when the conditions above mentioned are not observed we deal not with a composite Sent but a contextual link of 2 or > simple Sent. And even the conjunction “and” is no obstacle to this viewpoint because “and” can be used  at the beginning of an independent stylistic device, too (e.g.: Her eyes stared painfully. And she was silent.)