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# 11. Numerals, dates and the lexicon

This chapter gives the numerals and the Roman way of counting days and years, then the formation of words and the layers of the Latin vocabulary. These are the parts of Latin most often met in the documents Mova reads (dates in charters, numbers in the Bible) and the parts that pass most directly into English and the Romance languages.

## Contents

1. Cardinals and ordinals
2. Distributives and multiplicatives
3. Roman numerals
4. The calendar: Kalends, Nones, Ides
5. Years
6. Word formation
7. The layers of the vocabulary
8. How Mova handles it

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## 1. Cardinals and ordinals

|  | cardinal | ordinal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | *ūnus, ūna, ūnum* | *prīmus* |
| 2 | *duo, duae, duo* | *secundus, alter* |
| 3 | *trēs, tria* | *tertius* |
| 4 | *quattuor* | *quārtus* |
| 5 | *quīnque* | *quīntus* |
| 6 | *sex* | *sextus* |
| 7 | *septem* | *septimus* |
| 8 | *octō* | *octāvus* |
| 9 | *novem* | *nōnus* |
| 10 | *decem* | *decimus* |
| 11, 12 | *ūndecim, duodecim* | *ūndecimus, duodecimus* |
| 18, 19 | *duodēvīgintī, ūndēvīgintī* ("two from twenty, one from twenty") | *duodēvīcēsimus, ūndēvīcēsimus* |
| 20 | *vīgintī* | *vīcēsimus* |
| 21 | *vīgintī ūnus, ūnus et vīgintī* | *vīcēsimus prīmus* |
| 100 | *centum* | *centēsimus* |
| 200 | *ducentī, -ae, -a* | *ducentēsimus* |
| 1 000 | *mīlle* | *mīllēsimus* |
| 2 000 | *duo mīlia* | *bis mīllēsimus* |

**Declension.** *Ūnus, duo, trēs*, the hundreds from 200 (*ducentī* …) and *mīlia* decline; the others do not. *Ūnus* has the pronominal genitive *ūnīus*, dative *ūnī* ([chapter 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/03-adjectives/)). *Duo* has *duōrum, duōbus*; *trēs* is a third-declension adjective. **Mīlle** is an indeclinable adjective (*mīlle mīlitēs*); its plural ***mīlia*** is a neuter noun with the genitive (*tria mīlia mīlitum* "three thousand soldiers") (Bennett 1918 §§78–81).

## 2. Distributives and multiplicatives

**Distributives** answer "how many each": *singulī, bīnī, ternī, quaternī …* (*bīna castra* "two camps each"). They are also used with nouns plural in form and singular in meaning: *bīnae litterae* "two letters (epistles)". **Multiplicative adverbs** answer "how many times": *semel, bis, ter, quater, quīnquiēs, deciēs, centiēs, mīliēs*.

## 3. Roman numerals

I 1, V 5, X 10, L 50, C 100, D 500, M 1 000. A smaller numeral before a larger is subtracted (IV 4, IX 9, XL 40, XC 90, CD 400, CM 900); this subtractive writing is normal in modern print and less consistent in ancient inscriptions and medieval manuscripts (IIII, VIIII). A bar over a numeral multiplies it by a thousand. Medieval documents write numerals with points around them (*.xvii.*) and a final *j* for *i* (*vij* = 7).

## 4. The calendar: Kalends, Nones, Ides

The Roman month had three fixed days (Bennett 1918 §371):

- ***Kalendae*** (the 1st);
- ***Nōnae*** (the 5th, or the 7th in March, May, July and October);
- ***Īdūs*** (the 13th, or the 15th in those four months).

Other days are counted backwards, inclusively, to the next fixed day: *ante diem tertium Nōnās Iānuāriās* (*a.d. III Non. Ian.*) "the third day before the Nones of January" = 3 January. The day before a fixed day is *prīdiē*. The month name is an adjective agreeing with the fixed day (*Kalendīs Mārtiīs*). The ecclesiastical and medieval charters keep this system: *septimo decimo kalendas* … "the seventeenth day before the Kalends of …" ([chapter 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/14-medieval-latin/)).

## 5. Years

Classical dates name the consuls of the year in an ablative absolute: *M. Messallā M. Pīsōne cōnsulibus* (61 BC). Dates from the foundation of the city, ***ab urbe conditā*** (*a.u.c.*, 753 BC), are a learned convenience. Christian and medieval documents count:

- by the **indiction**, a 15-year tax cycle: *indictione quinta*;
- by the regnal year: *anno regni eius … septimo*;
- from the sixth century on, from the incarnation: ***anno ab incarnatione Domini*** *DCCCC* "in the year 900 from the incarnation of the Lord".

## 6. Word formation

Latin forms words by suffixes and by prefixes, rarely by compounding two nouns (Bennett 1918 §§146–159).

**Nouns:**

- *-or* (agent and state: *ōrātor, amor*);
- *-tiō, -siō* (action: *nātiō, mānsiō*);
- *-tās, -tūdō* (quality: *lībertās, fortitūdō*);
- *-ia, -itia* (*audācia, iūstitia*);
- *-mentum* (means: *ōrnāmentum*);
- *-ulus, -culus* (diminutive: *libellus, rēgulus*).

**Adjectives:**

- *-ōsus* (full of: *perīculōsus*);
- *-ālis, -āris* (*nātūrālis, mīlitāris*);
- *-ilis, -bilis* (able to be: *amābilis*);
- *-īnus, -ānus* (*marīnus, Rōmānus*);
- *-eus* (material: *aureus*).

**Verbs:**

- frequentatives in *-tāre/-itāre* (*clāmitāre* "keep shouting");
- inchoatives in *-scere* (*crēscere, senēscere*: "begin to");
- causatives and denominatives in *-āre* (*nōmināre*).

**Prefixes** on verbs change the vowel of the root (*facere → efficere, capere → accipere*) and assimilate to it (*ad- → ac-, af-, al-, ap-, as-*; *in- → im-, il-, ir-*; *con- → col-, com-, cor-*): *ab-, ad-, ante-, circum-, con-, dē-, dis-, ex-, in-, inter-, ob-, per-, prae-, prō-, re-, sub-, trāns-*.

## 7. The layers of the vocabulary

- **Inherited Italic** words make the core: *pater, māter, ovis, edere, esse*.
- **Greek loans** come in every period: early everyday words (*oleum, māchina*), the learned words of the Republic and the Empire (*philosophia, poēta, rhētor*), and the vocabulary of Christianity (*ecclēsia, episcopus, baptizāre, angelus, presbyter*).
- **Hebrew and Aramaic** words came through the Greek Bible: *sabbatum, pascha, amen, alleluia, satanas, cherubim*.
- **Christian Latin** gave old words new senses: *fidēs* faith, *grātia* grace, *salūs* salvation, *paganus* (from "villager") pagan, *verbum* the Word ([chapter 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/13-late-latin/)).
- **Germanic words** entered late and medieval Latin: *werra* war, *guardia*, *feudum* fief, *bannum* ([chapter 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/14-medieval-latin/)).

**Into English.** Latin reached English four times:

- the early loans of the Germanic peoples (*street* < *strāta*, *wine* < *vīnum*);
- the Christian loans after 597 (*priest, bishop, school*);
- the Norman French layer, Latin worn down by Romance (*people, chair, judge*);
- the learned Renaissance borrowings straight from the books (*population, cathedral, judicial*).

## 8. How Mova handles it

**In the UD trees:**

- numerals are `NUM` (cardinals) or `ADJ` with `NumType=Ord` (ordinals), attached as `nummod` or `amod`;
- *mīlia* is a `NOUN` with its genitive;
- Roman numerals in the LLCT charters are `NUM` with the numeral as written.

**In Mova.** Mova's English side reads numbers into the quantities of its world (the maths student: [math — the SLM's basic mathematics module](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/math/)). For Latin it has none yet. A Latin reader needs:

- the cardinals and Roman numerals as values, with the subtractive rule;
- *mīlia* + genitive read as a number of things;
- the dates of §4–5 converted to calendar dates: the charters of the LLCT treebank are dated this way, and their dates are facts for the world (who sold what to whom, when);
- the derivational suffixes of §6 for unknown words, the way the English lexicon guesses a part of speech from an ending.
- [← previous 10. Subordination and the moods](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/10-subordination/)
- [next → 12. Verse and the poetic language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/12-verse-style/)
- [↑ back to Latin (la) — a reference manual for Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/la/)