The Classification of Words

THE NUMERAL
§ 130. The numeral as a part of speech is characterized by

1. 
   its lexico-grammatical meaning of 'number',
   
2. 
   the category of numerical qualification represented in
   opposemes like seven — seventh, nine — ninth,
   
3. 
   its unilateral combinability with nouns (three children,
   the third child),
   
4. 
   such typical stem-building suffixes as -teen, -ty,
   
5. 
   its functioning as an attribute, less frequently as some
   other part of the sentence.
   

§ 131. The lexico-grammatical meaning of 'number' is not to be confused with the grammatical meaning of 'num­ber'.

1. 
   The former is the generalization of a multitude of lexi­
   cal meanings of individual numerals (five, ten, fifty-seven,
   etc.). The latter is the generalization of only two grammati­
   cal meanings: "singular" and "plural".
   
2. 
   The plural number, as in boys, shows indefinite plural­
   ity, whereas the meanings of numerals, as in twenty, forty
   are definite plurality.
   
3. 
   Like any grammatical meaning the "plural" of nouns
   is relative, dependent and indirect (§ 10). The lexical "plural"
   of a numeral like eight is not relative, being as much corre­
   lated with the "singular" of one as with the "plural" of seven,
   or nine, or eighty. The "plural" of eight is independent inas-
   njuch as it is the lexical meaning of an independent word.
   Its reflection of reality is direct as that of any lexical mean­
   ing
   

Р 92
¹ Грамматика русскою языка АН СССР, ч 1, М.— Л , 1953.

§ 132. Numerals are usually divided into two groups — cardinal numerals (one, five, twenty) and ordinal numerals (first fifth, twentieth). The former denote some numerical quantity, the latter — some numerical order.
The difference between these groups is sometimes exag­gerated to such an extent that they are treated as belonging to different parts of speech. For instance, A. I. Smirnitsky is of the opinion that only cardinal numerals form a separate part of speech, whereas ordinal numerals are adjectives ¹.
Language facts do not support such views.
1 Each cardinal numeral has a corresponding ordinal one. Cf. seven — seienth, thirty — thirtieth, eighty-four — eighty-fourth, etc.

2. 
   Both cardinals and ordinals qualify substances quan­
   titatively, as distinct from adjectives whose qualification
   is qualitative.
   
3. 
   Cardinals often denote numerical order like ordinals.
   Cf. lesson fice = Иге fifth lesson.
   
4. 
   Only numerals have the suffix -th. Nouns denoting
   number (gross score, etc.) cannot be associated with it.
   Formations of the type *grossth, *scoieth are impossible.
   
5. 
   If -th were regarded as a stem-building suffix, it would
   be the only suffjx of this kind in the English language em­
   bracing all the words of a part of speech (in our case — numer­
   als) minus three (one, two, three).
   
6. 
   The relation between ten and tenth resembles the rela­
   tion between boy and boy's. As words of the boy's type are
   mostly used in the function of attributes, they might also
   be declared adjectives.