Number  of cardinal and ordinal numerals, a lexico-semantic category Cover Image

Numărul numeralelor cardinale şi ordinale româneşti, o categorie lexico-semantică
Number of cardinal and ordinal numerals, a lexico-semantic category

Author(s): Diana-Maria Roman, Cristina Bocoș
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Universitatea »1 Decembrie 1918« Alba Iulia
Keywords: numeral; grammatical category; lexico-semantic category; syntagmatic agreement; flective

Summary/Abstract: ABSTRACT: In the time, the Romanian language grammar studies about the numeral have been frequently contradictory because of the heterogeneous behaviour both morphosynthactically and semantically. Currently, there are two important features individualizing the Romanian cardinal and ordinal numeral as part of speech recognized within the latest Romanian treaties: lexico-semantically, it is a word class expressing numerically (precisely) the quantity or the hipothesis referring mandatory to the quantity, held feature irrespective the syntagmatic updated morphological value – nounal, pronominal, adjectival; morphologically or inflexionally, aside some exceptions, the cardinal and ordinal numerals as compared to other parts of speech within the Romanian language which updates surely the number grammatical category –the noun, the qualifying adjective, the pronoun, the pronominal adjective, the personal verbal form, do not know the number grammatical opposition with two members – singular and plural, „they do not change according to the number” at the flectional level. Thus, regarding the flective, the category’s oppositions take place between different words within the stem. The evidence that the numerals know the respective category is represented by the syntagmatic grammatical agreement with the adjectival class or the personal verbal form. Consequently, the number of the Romanian cardinal and ordinal numerals has the same status as the nouns’ gender which leads us to avoid the name of number grammatical category for this part of speech given by several linguists in the Romanian grammar treaties, suggesting another lexico-semantic category following the nouns’ gender pattern.

  • Issue Year: 17/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 278-287
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Romanian