How do you spell "quantity" or "quantity"? This question repeatedly visits people who are somehow connected with writing lyrics. Looking into the dictionary every time is a tedious task, and it is not always there. Therefore, it makes sense to learn the spelling of this word, and at the same time figure out why it is written that way.
Travel story words
We must immediately make a reservation that of the two options: "quantity" or "quantity" - the second one will be correct.
Our language, like people, has its own ancestors. Accordingly, his words have a pedigree.
The roots of the word in question go deep into the thickness of history and stretch right up to the common Slavic language. "Quantity" is derived from the Old Slavonic "quantity". The latter, in turn, came from the common Slavic pronoun "kolik" in the meaning of "what, how much." But the family tree does not stop there, but takes root deeper and deeper. The pronoun "kolik" is composed of two parts:
- "ko" - from the pronoun "some",
- "lik" is an independent noun with the meaning of number, quantity.
Why is there only one L
Remembering how to write correctly, "number" or "quantity", do not try to apply the rules of Russian spelling. This is a dictionary word, so if you look for the reason for its spelling, then only in the etymological dictionary (dictionary of the history of the origin of words). Indeed, most often the spelling of morphemes is preserved when a word moves to another language.
Since the progenitors of the word are already known (they are discussed in this article above thanks to the material taken from the Tsyganenko dictionary), it remains to look at the spelling of the morphemes of interest in them.
So, the particle "li", inherent in the morpheme, from which the modern word comes, has one letter "l". This becomes the rationale for writing a single "l" in the word "quantity".
Related words come to the rescue
In order to answer what is correct: “quantity” or “quantity”, you need to refer to the progenitors of this word. But in order to remember his spelling, there is every reason to look at his cousins and sisters.
It happens that the same word migrates to different languages and changes a little. And it also happens that in one language, words that are completely different at first glance have the same ancestor. This happens due to the long "wandering" of words in the language, during which they undergo some changes. However, this does not affect the spelling of morphemes.
Having difficulty writingwords, knowing what his closest relatives look like, you can guess about his spelling. This simple technique is applicable to the word "quantity".
In Russian, the word "quantity" is formed from the same morpheme as the word "how much". Therefore, thinking about which of the two options to choose: “quantity” or “quantity”, you need to remember how the word “how much” is spelled. With one "l"? Then you can safely write "amount" with an undoubled consonant.
You can find relatives of the word "quantity" in other Slavic languages. So, for example, the Ukrainian word "lik" (account) comes from the noun "lik", and therefore is a cousin of the word in question.
The letter "l" turns into a bird wedge
For people with good visual memory, this article discusses another method of remembering the spelling of dictionary words. It is designed for visual associations.
To do this, you need to imagine a huge number of birds. They fill the whole sky with themselves, rush over the heads of people, touching their hair with their wings. There is no end to them.
Remembering how to write "quantity" or "quantity", you need to mentally return to this image. And then imagine how countless birds gather in one single wedge (one and the consonant "l" in the word in question) and fly far south.
Meaning of the words "number" and "quantity"
Having de alt with the spelling of the word, you need to reverseattention to its meaning. In general, quantity is a property of dimensionality, it applies to everything that can be counted or measured.
And man learned to count since ancient times. At first, fingers were used for this, then notches began to be made on sticks. With the advent of writing, people realized that it is very convenient to use letters to represent numbers.
Over time, people began to realize numbers separately from the objects they counted. The number has become an independent subject of thought that lives on its own.
But if "number" can exist without further additions, then when we talk about quantity, we mean the quantity of something. Strictly speaking, quantity is the embodiment of the function of number when counting items.
For example, you can say: "Twenty-seven." And here "twenty-seven" plays the role of a number, because it exists independently. But when we say: “Twenty-seven birches”, we already mean the quantity, that is, the number in action.
So, in order not to doubt between "quantity" or "quantity", as well as spelling options for other dictionary words with a double consonant, you should pay attention to the history of the origin of morphemes.
Each language has its ancestors and heirs.
