Numbers play an important role in everyday life, with their help people determine the number of objects, count time, determine the mass, cost and order when counting. Words that can be marked in writing by writing letters and numbers are called numerals. Another definition sounds like this: numerals are words denoting the serial number of an object or quantity.
Grammar signs of the numeral
All lexemes denoting whole and fractional numbers, as well as the number of people, animals or objects, are a special group of words, the composition of which is fully formed and does not change.
Such units are one of the important, or, as they say, significant parts of speech and can have several designations:
• the concept of a number as such: five, ten, fifteen, and so on;
• quantity of certain items: two cars, six houses;
• the cumulative value of several items that have been counted.
Accordingly, the questions to them sound like this: what is the number? which? how many? Depending on the meaning and the question to which the numeral answers, they are divided into several types (we will talk about this a little later).
For example: Thirty (subject) is divisible by ten. Six six - thirty-six (nominal part of the predicate). Speaking about the place of numerals in a sentence, it should be noted that they can be both main and secondary members. Another feature is that the numeral as a part of speech is a non-replenished group of words. All forms used in oral and written speech are formed exclusively from the name of the numbers. In the syntactic construction, the numeral as a part of speech can be both in the main and in the minor part of the sentence.
Pay attention! The numeral denoting quantity and the noun associated with it always act as one inseparable member of the sentence. For example: We walked until six in the morning. Swimming lessons start at 5:00. The girls collected twenty-five daisies.
Types of numerals
According to the numeral question put to the name, you can determine to which category it belongs. According to their meaning and features, they are all divided into quantitative (how many?) and ordinal (what? which?). In turn, cardinal numbers include three types: collective, fractional and integer numbers.
By the number of words in its composition, this part of speech, regardless of the category, can be compound or simple. For example: fourth, thirty-third, five, sixty-eight.
Features of the name of the numeral
From the point of view of morphological features, the numeral as a part of speech is almost always devoid of number, there is also no category of gender, and many of these words have features in case declension. At the same time, syntactic features should also be noted. They consist in the fact that numerals, combined with nouns, become indecomposable and always act as one member in a sentence, regardless of whether some other part of speech is inserted between them. For example: three nights, four days, five days; three proud palm trees stood silently.
It is worth noting that not always the words indicating the amount are actually numerals. The main distinguishing feature of this part of speech is that the quantity can be written in words and numbers. For example: three horses - 3 horses or three horses.
How quantitative numerals change
Examples of changing the names of numerals, which denote integers, can be found both in colloquial speech and in writing.
These words have the following grammatical features:
• Change by case:
Im. p.: six, eight.
R. p.: six, eight.
D. p.: six, eight.
B. p.: six, eight.
Tv. p.: six, eight.
P. p.: about six, about eight.
The cases of numerals depend on the parts of speech with which they are associated.
•Some have a gender category. For example: one film, one sun, one birch; two trees, two lakes, two hands.
• Only the numeral, the initial form of which is one, can be used in the plural and singular. For example: one chair, one bed, one friends, one sleigh. It is worth noting that the same word can be used as a restrictive particle, used in the meaning only, for example: one girls, one men.
• Almost all cardinal numbers do not have the category of animateness and inanimateness. The only exceptions here are such numbers - one, two, three, four. When these words are used, the corresponding endings change. For example: four flowers, four girlfriends.
• Numerals, examples of which denote a large amount of something (a million, a thousand and a billion), have their own grammatical differences: gender, number, declension by cases. Such words in phrases most often behave like nouns. For example: a million roses, a million roses, a million roses, a million roses, about a million roses.
How compound ordinal numbers change
Simple and compound numbers decline in cases. At the same time, simple ones change the ending, but in compound changes only the last word is subjected to changes. For example:
Im. p.: 1385.
R. p.: 1385.
D. p.: one thousand three hundred and eighty-fifth.
B. p.: one thousand three hundred and eighty-five(th).
Tv. p.: 1385th.
P. p.: about one thousand three hundred and eighty-fifth.
How do simple ordinal numbers change? When specifying a date, such a word may decline depending on the context, but the name of the month with which the number is associated is always used in the genitive case. For example: August tenth, August tenth, about August tenth.
In the names of events (the 8th of March holiday), after the defining words - holiday, day, date - the numeral should be used in the nominative case, and this word should be written with a capital letter.
How to decline fractional numbers
Quite often, when declining fractional numbers, many get lost and confuse them with compound numbers, but there is nothing complicated about this. In such cases, both parts of the phrase are declined: the first, expressed as an integer, and the second, an ordinal number in the plural. For example:
Im. p.: three fourths.
R. p.: three fourths.
D. p.: three fourths.
B. p.: three fourths.
Tv. p.: three-fourths.
P. p.: about three-fourths.
Special numbers
Often the declension in cases of collective numerals, for the most part used only in colloquial speech, also causes difficulties. The same rule applies here as when changing adjectives in the plural, i.e., numerals in this case acquire the same endings. For example:
Im. p.: two, five.
R. p.: two, five.
D. p.: two, five.
B. p.: two, five.
Tv. p.: two, five.
P. p.: about two, about five.
The numeral has both features. Changing in cases, the collective word in the middle and masculine form forms the same forms, but in the feminine, when declension, it is completely transformed. For example:
Im. p.: - both, both.
R. p.: - both, both.
D. p.: - both, both.
B. p.: - both, both, both, both.
Tv. p.: - both, both.
P. p.: - about both, about both.
How to do morphological parsing
One of the topics in the study of the numeral in the school curriculum is the analysis of the numeral according to morphological features. It is produced according to a certain plan.
First of all, the presented numeral is defined as a part of speech, its morphological features are indicated.
Next, you should highlight the initial form of the word being parsed, to which category it belongs (ordinal or cardinal number), structure (simple or compound) and features of its declension by cases.
The next step is to define non-permanent features. These are case, gender and number, if recognizable.
In conclusion, the analysis describes the syntactic function of the word in the sentence, with what part of speech it is associated and whether it agrees with it. And although such an analysis of the name of the numeral is unlikely to be useful to anyone inlife (except perhaps for future philologists), but for the correct use of words in speech and writing, it is simply necessary to be able to produce it.
