Microsoft Word Theoretical Course of English Grammar

The numeral 
The problem of the grammatical categorization of numerals, as to which class of parts of 
speech they should belong, is controversial. Some linguists (e.g. Biber, Conrad and Leech ) 

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Theoretical Course of English Grammar 
Script by prof. 
Nino Kirvalidze
28
think that numerals should be treated as a special class of function words as they form a rather 
self-contained area of English grammar. Others, Russian scholars mainly, consider that 
numerals should belong to the notional (i.e. content, lexical) parts of speech, as they can 
perform syntactic functions independently (Blokh 1983: 37-39). Numerals possess the following 
characteristic features. 
1.
Semantic features. The categorical meaning of numerals is number. There are two pa-
rallel sets of numerals: cardinals, answering the question “How many?” (
two, four, sixteen
) and 
ordinals, answering the question “Which?” and serving to place entities in order (
first, second, 
fifth
).
2.
Morphological features. As a word class, numerals consist of a small set of structurally 
simple forms (
one, two, ten, hundred, million,
etc.) and a large set of more complex forms: 
derived cardinal and ordinal numerals (
thirteen; eighteen; twenty; sixty
; 
fifth; seventh
), 
compound numerals (25 = twenty-five, 46 = forty-six, 2010 = two thousand and ten).
3.
Syntactic features. Numerals are most commonly used in the role of: 
attribute:
Four
people were arrested
. 
The first lecture begins at 9 a.m.
subject: 
Two of the men were arrested
. 
We have five lectures today. The first is Math.
object:
There were some apples on the table. I took one and left the room
.
predicative (following the link-verb):
He was the third to leave the room
.