I was just wondering about the way Ayeri forms fractions. The Grammar (§ 4.2.2.1) currently says that:
Fractional numerals are formed from men ‘one’ plus the integer divided by.
A table with all the forms for the basic numerals from ja to tam is listed.1 It informs furthermore that in order to
give multiples of a fraction, the numerator is used as a modifier of the fraction word, which serves as the head of the phrase:
- vadisān
- bread
- menkay
- third [= one.three]
- sam
- two
‘two thirds of a loaf’
However, how about a competing (e.g. traditional/colloquial vs. mathematical) or regional alternative where the denominator is the genitive form of the respective cardinal number, like this:
- vadisān
- bread
- kay-ena
- three-GEN
- sam
- two
‘two thirds of a loaf’
Or, to pattern with other case-marked numerals and their special meanings,2 the numeral could also be nominalized first and then case-marked:
- vadisān
- bread
- kay-an-ena
- three-NMLZ-GEN
- sam
- two
‘two thirds of a loaf’
Although kayanena is strictly speaking a nominal form and thus might be expected to follow ordinals (kayan vadisānena ‘the third bread’, three-NMLZ bread-GEN), it makes sense to use it as a regular numeral anyway – a drop-in replacement for menkay – since noun phrases cannot usually be doubly case-marked in Ayeri:
- Ang
- AT
- konja
- eat-3SG.M.T
- vadisānena
- bread-GEN
- kayan-ena [= menkay]
- third-GEN
- sam.
- two
‘He ate two thirds of a loaf.’- *Ang
- AT
- konja
- eat-3SG.M.T
- kayan-ena-ley
- third-GEN-P
- sam
- sam
- vadisānena.
- vadisānena
- Cf. an earlier article on numerals on this blog. ↩
- Cf. an earlier article on ordinals and multiplicative numerals on this blog. ↩