by Max Wheeler
On the relationship between the neuter article el and the demonstrative pronoun allò in such constructions, normative grammar recommends use of the latter (or la cosa que) to resolve the possible ambiguity of a sentence like És el que et deia ‘It’s the man I was telling you about’ (el = masculine definite article) or ‘It’s what I was telling you about’ (el = neuter article). In such a case És allò que et deia or És la cosa que et deia would be unambiguous.
A non-restrictive relative clause, placed in apposition to another clause, may make use of the expression la qual cosa ‘which thing’:
Perdries moltes nits, la qual cosa no va bé per a la salut.
You’d lose a lot of nights’ sleep, which isn’t good for your health.
Al final, per molt que havia dit que no hi aniria, va acudir a la cita; de la qual cosa dedueixo que l’afer no li era tan indiferent com pretenia fer creure. (Lacreu, 1990)
Finally, despite all his talk about not going, he turned up for the appointment, from which I deduce that the affair wasn’t so unimportant to him as he tried to make out.
This, however, is a rather archaic solution, virtually confined to literary language, and the spoken standard prefers cosa que ‘(a) thing which’ for this kind of relativization, or resorts to alternative constructions:
La reunió no comença fins les nou, cosa que em permet de fer abans algunes consultes.
The meeting doesn’t begin until 9 o’clock, which allows me to make some enquiries beforehand.
Després d’això no va tenir altre remei que dimitir.
After which he had no alternative but to resign.
Em va acusar que era impacient i que posava en perill l’operació total; i jo li vaig respondre que …
He accused me of being impatient and of jeopardizing the whole operation, to which I responded …
Hem tingut molta ajuda i molta sort; si no, no ho hauríem aconseguit.
We’ve had a lot of help and a lot of luck, without which we never would have managed it.
Crea complicacions d’horari, i això s’ha d’evitar.
It creates timetabling problems, which is to be avoided.
Remodelaran aquest sector, i tots ens n’aprofitarem.
They’ll reorganize this sector, from which we’ll all take advantage.
Non-standard Catalan frequently uses lo que as a neuter relative pronoun in all the above constructions.
9.2.3 ABSTRACTION OF A PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
Prepositional phrases headed by de may be found nominalized with neuter el (non-standard lo), but here other constructions are preferred in all styles.
?Val més tractar ara el de més importància. = Val més tractar ara el que té/això que té més importància. = Val més tractar ara les coses de més importància.
It will be better to deal now with the most important matter.
?Farem el de costum? = Farem el que fem de costum? = Farem les coses de costum?
Shall we do the usual?
?E1 de lluny no es veu gaire clar. = El que hi ha lluny/El que és lluny no es veu gaire clar. = Les coses de lluny no es veuen gaire clares.
What is in the distance can’t be seen very clearly.
In all such cases això de or allò de also seems preferableto el de: hence això de més importància, allò de lluny, etc.
10 NUMERALS
10.1 CARDINAL NUMBERS
Cardinal numbers are those used in counting (‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, etc.) as opposed to ordinal numbers which place items in numerical order (‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’, etc.).
0 zero
1 un/una, u
2 dos/dues
3 tres
4 quatre
5 cinc
6 sis
7 set
8 vuit (Val. huit)
9 nou
10 deu
11 onze
12 dotze
13 tretze
14 catorze
15 quinze
16 Setze
17 disset (Bal.,Yal. desset, Val. dèsset)
18 divuit (Bal. devuit, Val. díhuit
19 dinou (Bal., Val. denou, Val. dènou/dèneu)
20 vint
21 vint-i-un/una, vint-i-u
22 vint-i-dos/dues
23 vint-i-tres
24 vint-i-quatre
25 vint-i-cinc
26 vint-i-sis
27 vint-i-set
28 vint-i-vuit
29 vint-i-nou
30 trenta
31 trenta-un/una, trenta-u
32 trenta-dos/dues
33 trenta-tres
34 trenta-quatre, etc.
40 quaranta
41 quaranta-un/una, quaranta-u
42 quaranta-dos/dues,etc.
50 cinquanta
60 seixanta
70 setanta
80 vuitanta (Val. huitanta)
90 noranta
100 cent
101 cent un/una, cent u
102 cent dos/dues
103 cent tres, etc.
200 dos-cents/dues-centes
201 dos-cents un/dues-centes una, dos-cents u
300 tres-cents/tres-centes
400 quatre-cents/ quatre-centes, etc.
1000 mil
1001 mil un/mil una, mil u
1100 mil cent
2000 dos mil/dues mil
3000 tres mil, etc.
100,000 cent mil
200,000 dos-cents mill/dues-centes mil
200,000 dos-cents mill/dues-centes mil
1,000,000 un milió
1,000,000,000 mil milions (i.e. an American billion)
1,000,000,000,000 un bilió (i.e. a European billion)
a trillion un trilió
Deu és un nombre psarell. Ten is an even number.
Set és un nombre imparell/senar. Seven is an odd number.
47 és un nombre primer. 47 is a prime number.
Forms corresponding literally to English ‘twelve hundred’, ‘fifteen hundred’, etc. are not used in Catalan. So 1858 is read as mil vuit-cents cinquanta-vuit, whether as a year or in any other context. Nor does Catalan use the abbreviated manner of reading numbers over one hundred which we use in English for items (years, hotel rooms, house numbers, bus routes, etc.) which are numbered in sequence:
476 AD four-seven-six/four-seventy-six quatre-cents setanta-sis
1905 nineteen-O-five mil nou-cents cinc
Room 251 two-five-one l’habitació dos-cents cinquanta-u
Telephone numbers, however, are normally broken up into groups of two digits (starting from the end), which are then read as numbers, if possible:
236 55 80 dos trenta-sis cinquanta-cinc vuitanta
(093) 509 31 22 zero noranta-tres cinc zero nou trenta-u vint-i-dos
Other numbers given as an arbitrary identification code (account numbers, vehicle registration numbers, ID card numbers) can be pronounced one digit at a time.
10.2 GENDER AGREEMENT OF NUMERALS
Un/una ‘one’, dos/dues ‘two’, and the compounds of cent (i.e. dos-cents/dues-centes, tres-cents/-centes ‘two hundred’, etc., but not cent ‘one hundred’ itself) agree in gender with the noun counted (expressed or understood):
(i) 250.872 ptes = dues-centes cinquanta mil vuit-centes setanta-dues pessetes
(ii) 22.131 persones = vint-i-dues mil cent trenta-una persones
(iii) 81.000 tones = vuitanta-una mil tones
(iv) $22.131 = vint-i-dos mil cent trenta-un dòlars
In examples (i–iii) above all the numbers which can agree in gender are feminine because pessetes ‘pesetas’, persones ‘persons’, and tones ‘tons’ are feminine; in (iv) they are masculine because dòlars ‘dollars’ is masculine.
10.3 PUNCTUATION IN NUMERALS
Note that -i- ‘and’ is used only between vint ‘twenty’ and following units. Hyphens are used to link tens and units (e.g., seixanta-sis 66) and to link the multiples of cent ‘hundred’ (e.g., vuit-cents/vuit-centes 800). The h
yphen remains in the ordinal numbers derived from these (see below 10.8), but is not used in the adjectives derived from the ‘hundreds’ with the suffix -ista, which are used to refer to centuries:
el vuit-cents the eighteen-hundreds
la prosa vuitcentista nineteenth-century prose
In numerals written in figures a full stop or a space (rather than a comma) separates the thousands from the hundreds, the millions from the hundred thousands, and so on; a comma, read as coma or as amb, is used for the decimal point (see 10.9).
10.4 MILLIONS, BILLIONS, TRILLIONS
Milió, bilió, trilió (pl. milions, etc.) are masculine nouns, and are connected with de to the noun or noun phrase which is counted (unless another number follows ‘million’/’billion’/’trillion’).
El projecte va costar gairebé tres bilions de pessetes.
The project cost nearly three billion pesetas.
L’enciclopèdia contindrà mig milió d’entrades.
The encyclopedia will contain half a million entries.
£2.409.500 = dos milions quatre-centes nou mil cinc-centes lliures esterlines
S’estima que el SIDA tindrà molts milions de víctimes abans de l’any 2010.
It is estimated that AIDS will have several million victims before the year 2010.
10.5 THE FORM U ‘ONE’
When referring to the names or forms of numbers (rather than counting objects), u ‘one’, vint-i-u, trenta-u, etc., are used, instead of un, vint-i-un, trenta-un, and so on.
el número u
number one
–Quin número tens? – El vint-i-u.
‘Which number have you got?’ ‘Twenty-one.’
Cent quatre s’escriu amb un u, un zero i un quatre.
One hundred and four is written with a one, a nought and a four.
Similarly u occurs when using cardinals, in place of ordinals, for items in a series:
el dia trenta-u de març the 31st of March
el quilòmetre u the first km mark/the 1km mark
el despatx número 141 = el despatx número cent quaranta-u office number 141
However, un, etc., can be used in counting, in arithmetic, in giving scores, even when what is being counted is not explicitly mentioned.
El Barça ha guanyat dos a u(n). Barcelona won 2–1
Dos per u(n) és dos. Twice one is two.
10.6 GENDER OF NUMBERS
The names of the numbers themselves are masculine in gender (unlike the letters of the alphabet which are feminine); they can be pluralized.
Ja no ens queden quaranta-tresos. We haven’t got any (size) forty-threes left.
Ens van sortir tres dosos. Three twos turned up.
Hi havia cents de joves. There were hundreds of young people.
10.7 ARITHMETICAL EXPRESSIONS
2 + 5 = 7 Dos i cinc són/fan set.
12 × 5 = 60 Dotze per cinc són seixanta.
14–3 = 11 Catorze menys tres són onze.
108 ÷ 12 = 9 Cent vuit dividit per dotze són nou.
L’arrel segona/quadrada de 16 és 4. The square root of 16 is four.
El quadrat de 8 és 64. The square of 8 is 64.
3 és l’arrel terça/cúbica de 27. 3 is the cube root of 27.
El cub de 2 és 8. The cube of 2 is eight.
10.8 ORDINALS
For the numbers above four, the ordinals are formed by adding the suffix -è/-ena (pl. -ens/-enes) to the cardinal number.
primer/-a first vintè/-ena twentieth
segon/-a second vint-i-unè/-ena twenty-first
tercer/-a third vint-i-dosè/-ena twenty-second
quart/-a fourth vint-tresè/-ena twenty-third
cinquè/cinquena fifth (dial. also quint/-a) vint-i-quatrè/-enaetc. twenty-fourth
sisè/-ena sixth (dial. also sext/-a) trentè/-enatrenta-unè/-ena thirtieththirty-first
setè/-ena seventh (dial. also sèptim/-a) quarantè/-enaetc. fortieth
vuitè/-ena eighth (dial. also octau/octava) centè/-enados-centè/-ena hundredthtwo-hundredth
novè/-ena ninth milè/-ena thousandth
desè/-ena tenth Note:
onzè/-ena etc. eleventh darrer/-a,últim/-a lastlast
dinovè/-ena nineteenth enèsim/-a nth, umpteenth
The ordinals from ‘first’ to ‘tenth’ are in everyday use; they generally precede the noun referred to:
la primera comunió
first communion
el tercer mes
the third month
Ja és la cinquena vegada que ho sento contar.
That’s the fifth time I’ve heard that story.
However, ordinals indicating sequences of monarchs, popes, centuries, etc., follow the noun:
Jaume I (read Jaume primer) James I
Pau VI (read Pau sisè) Paul VI
Elisabet II (read Elisabet segona) Elizabeth II
el segle IV (read el segle quart) the fourth century
For the days of the month, ordinals are used, except for ‘first’ where ordinal and cardinal are optional alternatives:
el primer de juliol/l’u de juliol the 1st of July
el (dia) quinze d’agost the 15th of August
The phrase el/la qui/que fa x (x = cardinal) can be used with the same meaning as an ordinal:
–Qui és el quart? –No ho sé, jo som el qui fa cinc.
‘Who is fourth?’ ‘I don’t know; I am fifth.’
The ordinals above tenth are used only in official or legal language. In other styles cardinal numbers are used, following the noun (with u, not un, for first, etc., see 10.5). In this context the cardinal numbers do not vary for gender.
–A quin capítol es troba? –Al quinze. ‘Which chapter is it in?’ ‘The 15th’/‘15.’
el segle XVIII (read el segle divuit) the eighteenth century
Alfons XII (read Alfons dotze) Alfonso XII
la pàgina 301 (read la pàgina tres-cents u) page 301
la fila 22 (read la fila vint-i-dos) row 22
10.9 FRACTIONS
Mig/mitja ‘half’ is an adjective. Meitat ‘half’ is a feminine noun, generally definite. Mig is also used adverbially, as is the phrase a mitges.
mig pa half a loaf
mitja taronja half an orange
tres hores i mitja three and a half hours(note word order; mitja (f.) because hora ‘hour’ is understood)
mig milió de pessetes half a million pesetas
un milió i mig de pessetes 1 ½ million pesetas (mig (m.) because milió is understood)
Dóna-me’n la meitat. Give me half (of it).
La meitat de sis és tres. Half of six is three.
La meitat del temps dorm. He’s asleep half the time.
La sala només estava mig plena. The room was only half full.
mig omplir un got to half fill a glass
L’han fet només a mitges. They’ve only half done it.
Other names of fractions in normal use are: terç ‘third’, quart ‘quarter’, dècim ‘tenth’, centèsim ‘100th’, mil·lèsim ‘1000th’:
dos terços two thirds
tres quarts three quarters
sis dècims six tenths
For the remaining fractions it is possible to use nouns derived from the masculine ordinals, e.g. quatre quinzens ‘four fifteenths’. Except in arithmetic, it is more usual to use the feminine noun part ‘part’ with an ordinal adjective preceding:
quatre quinzenes parts four fifteenths
un quart dels seus béns/una quarta part dels seus béns one quarter of his property
MUSICAL INTERVALS
For musical intervals above ‘fourth’ some special terms are used: segona ‘second’, tercera ‘third’, quarta ‘fourth’, quinta ‘fifth’, sexta ‘sixth’, sèptima ‘seventh’, octava ‘octave’.
Cantava una octava més alt. She sang an octave higher.
harmonitzat a base de quintes harmonized on a pattern of fifths
PERCENTAGES
In percenta
ges normally an article is used, the indefinite article implying a less precise figure than the definite:
EI 15 per cent dels ciutadans no saben el català/no sap el català.
15 per cent of the inhabitants do not know Catalan.
La inflació ha pujat a un 150 per cent anual.
Inflation has risen to some 150 per cent a year.
tant per cent
so much per cent
un tant per cent no gaire alt
a not very high percentage
DECIMAL FRACTIONS
3,43 (read tres coma quaranta-tres/tres amb quaranta-tres)
0,25 (read zero coma vint-i-cinc/zero amb vint-i-cinc)
Aquesta habitació fa 2,75 (dos coma setanta-cinc) per 3,5 (tres coma cinc) metres.
This room measures 2.75 by 3.5 metres.
10.10 COLLECTIVE NUMERALS
There is a series of words for approximate or round numbers; the commonest are: parell ‘pair’, ‘couple’, desena ‘ten’, dotzena ‘dozen’, vintena ‘score’, trentena ‘thirty’, centenar ‘hundred’, miler, milenar ‘thousand’.
una vintena d’anys a couple of decades
Hi havia una trentena d’assistents. There were about thirty people present.
molts milers de persones thousands of people
Note la trentena, la quarantena, etc., ‘the (approximate) age of thirty, forty, etc.’, una quinzena ‘a fortnight’:
Li manca mig any per a arribar a la norantena.
She is six months short of her ninetieth birthday.
Hi passarem la segona quinzena de juliol.
We shall spend the second half of July there.
Note also centenes ‘hundreds’, desenes ‘tens’, unitats ‘units’ in referring to arithmetical expressions:
