The Russian language is considered the most difficult of all existing on the planet. It so happened that we are almost the only carriers of it. That is why it is necessary to live up to this proud title. Active study of it begins at school: the alphabet is mastered in the primary grades, and more complex material is mastered in the senior and middle levels, but even its good knowledge does not guarantee that you will be fluent in Russian.
What is language? Many will answer this question without hesitation: words. Although this is not entirely true, part of the answer to the question is correct. It is the words that form the basis of our speech.
Folding into sentences, they form texts that carry information. Of course, words have their own specific categories, called parts of speech. There are a limited number of them: everyone, for example, knows about the noun, adjective and verb. So, among them there is another category of words, which is often forgotten and confused in it. It's about numbers. They come in several varieties and are used in different ways. About what are ordinal and quantitativenumerals, how they are used, will be discussed in this article.
Parts of speech
As mentioned above, in Russian all words are divided into classes, or parts of speech - independent and functional. The first includes all those that have a meaning separately from the context: a noun, a verb, an adjective. The numeral is also included in this group. The second part is auxiliary, which includes particles, prepositions, and so on. Precisely because words denoting numbers can be attributed to the first group, it is possible to determine the cases of cardinal numbers and the gender of ordinal numbers.
What is a numeral
We know that there is such a part of speech as the numeral. What does she mean? In fact, everything is quite simple: from the name itself, you can understand that these words are responsible for writing numbers and numbers using Russian letters.
For example, the notation "2" is a mathematical form, and "two" is a numeral written according to the rules of the Russian language. Many people think that this part of speech is useless, because it is much more convenient to use Arabic or even Roman numerals, but since this type of word exists, then it is necessary. There are a number of opinions that numbers in mathematical form are also numerals. However, linguists consider this approach to be wrong, because numbers are usually attributed to symbols and signs, and not to words, and the numeral, by definition, is a part of speech.
Types of numerals
Like any part of speech in Russian, numerals have their own digits. At school, we were told only about two, butlinguists identify four. Let's analyze them all in detail.
So, the first type is cardinal numbers. They answer the question: "How much?" For example: how many pears? how many guys? In other words, they indicate the number of any items that need to be counted. Among the signs, they note only the case, that is, they have neither gender nor number. The exception is the quantitative numerals "two" and "one" - they have both a number and a case, but the words "two" and "one and a half" can also be used in different genders. Thus, we can conclude that the use of numerals is mainly associated with the use of the quantitative type
- The second type includes such a group, the existence of which can be heard quite rarely - these are collective numerals. For many, this name may seem rather unusual. In fact, collective numbers are a kind of quantitative ones. The only difference is that they mean "collecting a certain amount", which is why they were bred into a separate group. Examples of such numerals are the words two, three, five, and so on. One of the most important remarks is that this form is not used with feminine nouns. You can't, for example, say "three women."
- The third type includes ordinal numbers. They are used to recalculate any objects and are written (read) as follows: first, second, tenth, and so on. Ordinal and quantitativenumerals can change by case, and the ordinal form will always coincide with the form of the adjective, so some linguists refer such numerals to this part of speech.
- The fourth group is fractional numbers. This type always has a composite character, and the nouns “whole” and “zero” can be used when denoting decimal fractions. The endings of the numerals of the fractional form depend on the case in which they are located. Examples are the words: three-fifths; zero point eight.
Simple and compound forms
Ordinal and cardinal numbers can have a simple and compound form. In the first case, they consist of one word, and in the other - of several, including nouns. Fractional numbers always have a compound form. For example: four thirds (consists of two words). When using compound forms in different cases, many people often have difficulties. For example, try putting the number one hundred and eighty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty-one in the prepositional case. How to learn how to do it right away will be written a little lower.
Examples of numbers in the text
The most striking example of the use of these words can be considered fiction. The classics often used such words to denote numbers, which is why the use of numerals in novels and stories is quite widespread. In general, it is generally accepted to write all the numbers in narrative literature.letters - this facilitates the perception of a literary text and does not allow a person to switch from one type of information - textual - to another, in this case numerical.
In the literature, sentences with numerals may look like this: “There were three buckets of earth in the yard” - this is an example of using a quantitative numeral. "Two hussars famously picked up the wounded man and put him on a stretcher" - an expression using a collective form. It is quite rare to find fractional varieties. One of these cases can be called the well-known platform "nine and three quarters" in the book by J. Rowling "Harry Potter". Most of all we meet with the uppercase version of the use of numbers when we are in school. For example, in the textbook “Russian language. Grade 6 "Lodyzhenskaya has a lot of tasks containing written variations of various numbers, since it is the section" Morphology "that is given the most attention here.
Numbers in the school curriculum
As mentioned above, numerals are those parts of speech, in the characteristics and typology of which even diligent students get confused. This happens because in the program for the subject "Russian" grade 6 is the only one where this part of speech is studied in detail.
Of course, students forget important information, and meanwhile, numerals can be found on the Unified State Exam in the task devoted to the grammatically correct use of words. As a rule, here these parts of speech are presented in a compound form (and, toword, not in the nominative case). The examinee is required to determine whether it is used correctly or not, which for many is a serious problem. To complete the task, it is necessary to master the material related to the declension of parts of speech by cases at a high level, you need to know how the endings of numerals are formed. The problem lies precisely in the fact that the guys simply forget the material, because at the time of studying it, the percentage of those who are not given it tends to zero. Everyone knows the categories and can decline any numerals by cases, but after a certain time, with insufficient practice, this skill is lost, so it is imperative to refresh your knowledge before exams.
Correct use of numerals
In general, the main difficulties, and not only for students, but also for most people, are the correct use of this part of speech. People simply do not know what the forms of numbers look like. Therefore, we will analyze in detail which endings have different digits of "capital" numbers.
The simplest forms are cardinal numbers: words denoting numbers from five to twenty and thirty, in the genitive, dative and prepositional cases, have the endings -i, and in the instrumental -u. Let's look at the example of the declension of the numeral "five". So, let's decline by cases: five, five, five, five, five, five. In numbers from fifty to eighty and from two hundred to nine hundred, both parts of the word are inclined, for example: fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty, fifty, about fifty. In case ifcompound numeral, each of the words is declined separately.
As for ordinal numbers that change by number and gender, their ending is formed according to the same principle as for relative adjectives. An important feature is that when declining in cases of a compound form, only the last word changes. For example, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six, four thousand eight hundred ninety-six.
Fractional numbers can be conditionally divided into two types: the numerator of a fraction is in quantitative form, and the denominator is in ordinal form. It follows from this that it is possible to change a fractional number by separately declining both words according to cases.
By remembering these simple rules, you can be sure of the correct use of any necessary forms. More clearly information about the endings can be demonstrated by the table of numerals.
Basic mistakes
After a closer look at how numbers change, it may seem impossible to remember all this. In fact, there is nothing difficult and unusual here - it is enough to decline some of the compound forms on your own, as soon as the principle becomes clear, after which the errors will disappear. It has been noticed that people who more often use sentences with numerals in colloquial speech make fewer mistakes in writing.speech when solving tests.
Based on the same test results, it was found that the main difficulties arise for respondents with changing words according to case forms, which indicates the illiteracy of a certain percentage of the country's population. In oral tests, two-thirds of the respondents had difficulty pronouncing complex compound numbers, and the forms also remained incorrect.
Some tips for learning numbers
If you want to learn this part of speech really well and never have problems with it again in your life, you should act in this way. The first step is to learn all the material that is required for development. You can stretch this process over several days using standard memorization procedures: visual, auditory memory, as well as well-known techniques, such as reading before bedtime. After a thorough study of the theory, you can move on to practice. No, you don’t need to sit at books and write dozens of pages with declensions of numerals (however, you can try - this operation is quite useful, albeit time-consuming). In fact, in our life, all visible objects can be counted. Pay attention to how many cars passed by, or you can just read the signs on the signs and look at the price tags in the stores - why not numerals? Further, using theoretical knowledge, it is recommended to produce case declensions in your mind. After about a week, pronunciation of numerals will no longer be a problem at all. If this method is difficult, then alwaysthe first option remains - to prescribe. Of course, everyone decides for himself with the method of studying the material, selects the optimal one, but the above methods will allow you to quickly master the declination technique, and therefore avoid the most common mistakes.
Numbers in documentation
Surely many people filled out tax returns and other financial documents, where there is always some amount. You probably noticed that the mathematical notation is always (in brackets or on a separate line) written in words, i.e., cardinal numbers. What is this demagoguery for? It is believed that this will save you from mistakes. If a person has incomprehensible handwriting, he can write a number in such a way that it will be easy to confuse it with some other, and if the number is written completely in letters, the probability of error is less.
Conclusion
So, now you know what ordinal and cardinal numbers are, as well as what other types of them exist. After reading this article, there should be no doubt about how to use these words correctly in your speaking and writing. Of course, it will be necessary to make efforts for this, but the result will please you. It should also be said that every inhabitant of our country is obliged to know his language at the proper level. Of course, it is impossible to know Russian from cover to cover (well, there are no such people), but you still need to be able to express yourself correctly. At least so that others understand the meaning of statements, and you, once in a “decent” society, do notfelt embarrassed.
