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In:The Diachrony of Word Class Peripheries
Edited by Tanja Ackermann and Christian Zimmer
[Studies in Language Companion Series 238] 2025
► pp. 126–156

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Chapter 6
Peripheral members of a peripheral class

Cardinal numerals and dynamic word classes

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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 7 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.238.06von
Abstract
The word class cardinal numeral is quite specific in that, compared with other parts-of-speech categories, it constitutes both a considerably small and a semantically coherent class. There is moreover a class-internal morphosyntactic system which is not shared by any other word class that is needed for the construction of complex number expressions. A sketch of the grammar of cardinal numerals provided in the first parts of this text will serve as a basis from which I will develop the main claim of this chapter — a dynamic perspective on word class categorization. In this perspective, peripheral class members are seen to be younger members of a class whereas prototypicality correlates with the historical duration of the class membership of a word. While prototypical features of word classes can of course be taken as defining the properties of a class, the potential sources of those words that are about to become new members as well as the pathways of their integration should be taken as equally essential properties of a category. While, due to the small size of the class, cardinal numerals are a perfect case to study these properties, I argue that similar observations can in principle be made for any other word class too.
Article outline
  • 1.Aim and starting point
  • 2.Cardinal numerals as a word class
    • 2.1Numerically specific quantification
    • 2.2Numeral systems and the internal grammar of numerals
    • 2.3External morphosyntactic properties of cardinal numerals
    • 2.4Complex numerals
  • 3.Nouny numerals
    • 3.1Partitive structures
    • 3.2The higher bases
  • 4.How numerals become numerals
    • 4.1The chronological setup of numeral systems
    • 4.2Semantic volatility of higher bases
  • 5.A dynamic approach to word classes
    • 5.1Cardinal numerals as a dynamic category
    • 5.2The transition from one class to another
    • 5.3Areas of overlap
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (48)
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