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The first two in the sequence are by far the most common; 'tertiary' appears occasionally, and higher numbers are rare except in specialized contexts ('quaternary period'). The Greek series proto- , deutero- , trito- , ... is only found in prefixes, generally scholarly and technical coinages, e.g. protagonist, deuteragonist, tritagonist ...
To define this set, he defined the transfinite ordinal numbers and transformed the infinite indices into ordinals by replacing ∞ with ω, the first transfinite ordinal number. Cantor called the set of finite ordinals the first number class. The second number class is the set of ordinals whose predecessors form a countably infinite set.
The exception is pertama, which means "first". Numbers in Filipino are preceded by the ordinal prefix ika-or pang-(the latter subject to sandhi; for example, ika-7 or pam-7 "seventh"). The exception is una, which means "first". In Chinese and Japanese, an ordinal number is prefixed by 第 dì / dai; for example: 第一 "first", 第二 "second".
The ordinal category are based on ordinal numbers such as the English first, second, third, which specify position of items in a sequence. In Latin and Greek, the ordinal forms are also used for fractions for amounts higher than 2; only the fraction 1 / 2 has special forms.
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Based on the ordinary ordinals is another series of adjectives: prīmārius 'of the first rank', secundārius 'of the second class, of inferior quality', tertiārius 'containing a third part', quārtārius 'a quarter, fourth part', quīntārius 'containing five parts', 'five-sixths', sextārius 'a one-sixth part of a congius, 'pint', and so on. [3]
Adjectives (in the first and second as well as third declensions) that have masculine nominative singular forms ending in -er are slightly different. As with normal adjectives, the comparative is formed by adding -ior to the stem, but for the superlative, -rimus is added to the nominative masculine singular.