Proto-Indo-European Numerals - Ordinal Numbers

Ordinal Numbers

The ordinal numbers are difficult to reconstruct due to their variety in the daughter languages. The following reconstructions are tentative:

• "first" is formed with *pr̥h₃- (related to some adverbs meaning "forth, forward, front" and to the particle *prō "forth", thus originally meaning "foremost" or similar) plus various suffixes like *-mo-, *-wo- (cf. Latin primus, Russian perv-).
• "second": The daughter languages use a wide range of expressions, often unrelated to the word for "two" (including Latin and English), so that no PIE form can be reconstructed.
• "third" to "sixth" were formed from the cardinals plus the suffix *-t(ó)-: *tr̥-t(ó)- / *tri-t(ó)- "third" etc.
• "seventh" to "tenth" were formed by adding the thematic vowel *-ó- to the cardinal: *oḱtow-ó- "eighth" etc.

The cardinals ending in a syllabic nasal (seven, nine, ten) inserted a second nasal before the thematic vowel, resulting in the suffixes *-mó- and *-nó-. These and the suffix *-t(ó)- spread to neighbouring ordinals, seen for example in Vedic aṣṭamá- "eighth" and Lithuanian deviñtas "ninth".