Word foimation in the Cardinal number systems across languages (Mathematical problems in numbers)

• Main Author: Hoang Thi Chau
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: H. : ĐHQGHN 2017
• Online Access: http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/57230
• Institution: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

The Cardinal number system is add ressed in this paper as a smallyettypic al sign systcmin its larger sign super-system - language. The biiaceted nature of signs is clearly demonstratcd: most numbers have doublcm canings, one is structural while the other is lexical. For instance, in Vietnamcse, the number “lbrty four" lexically denotes “the next number after 43 in natural number chains and structurally means 4x10+4. Meamvhile, irv Prench, number “80" is quatre-vingt (4x20) withihc lexical nicaning of “eighty” while it structurally means “4x20”; and number “70” soixanl-dix has the structure “60+10". Deep under the addition and multiplication problems mentioned above are mathmatical thoughts and languages of thcse nations: the Vietnamese is based on the decimal numeration while the French use the degisemal numeration. The data used in this analysis are restricted within languages of ethnic minoritics in Vietnam and two major language families in Southcast Asia, namely Austroasiatic and Austronesian, or to be more precisc, Austro-Tai, which are closely related to the Vietnamesc language. In order to clearly identify featurcs of word formation in the numbers of isolating, analytic languages in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, comparative and contrastive analyses have becn made against the number systcms of Indo-Europcan languagcs representative of the synthctic typoỉogy and familiar to us, including French, English and German, before the following conclusions arc made:1. Numbers are thc most basic words among the basic, i.e. themost ancicnt. The number system of each nation has been developed through a long process of thousands of years. The 10 basic vvords have transiormd into 100 others by employing one or morc of these: morphological change, alTixation, word combination, and word order change. The number systems are highly systematic with fixed structure. However, partial or total borrowings of an entirc system are still possiblc.2. This is an inỉtial structural investigation of the linguistic íbrm of the numeration systems with a view to identifying the steps in the formation of language and thought in a narrovv sensc. 3. The investigation of the number systems in different European and Asian regions, across various language fam ilies, helps reveal their universalities as well as ty picalitics in their language formulation and development process.