I said the following, followed by further trivial postings:
>>>In reality,
>>>a number always qualifies some other noun unless you're talking
>>>algebra.
>>
>>Alas, no. What you say is true of course at a deep level, but
>>if you are talking human languages, then the surface construct could be
>>different. [...]
>
>In Chinese, numerals can almost never qualify another noun [...]
Enough, people! I was speaking about numbers in languages *in
general*. When refering to a specific language, of course we might
call its numerals "nouns" or "adjectives" or whatever makes sense
for that language.
However, we were talking about human languages in general, not
a specific language. Therefore, when speaking about some vague
Proto-World, we can hardly contemplate what qualities this
language had in our complete ignorance, aside from Patrick Ryan
who knows far more than we do :P Stressing onself over whether the
numerals then were originally nouns or adjectives is what I had
found ridiculous and futile.
Carry on, though. I wouldn't want you guys to diverge from your
divergeant divergance. :P
- love gLeN
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