Note.—The ending -ik of the ordinals is sometimes dropped if another word is joined to it. This is not universally done, however, and is almost exclusively used to express age; for instance, másodéves, in the second year; ("two years old" would be kétéves).
Cardinals take—with the exception of the plural endings—all suffixes of the substantive, if this is not written out—i.e., they follow the same rules as the adjectives. They form also adverbs, which answer to the question, How many? and the respective verb; for instance, How many ran away? hárman.[1] The terminations of the adverb are -an and -en, as négy-en, öten, &c.
Egy=egyedül; and kettő=ketten form their adverbs irregularly. Három and ezer become contracted; hárman, ezren. The rest are regular.
Ordinals follow the same rules as cardinals—that is, they are adjectives and declinable. They form their adverbs by dropping the ending -ik and taking -szor or -szer instead. Első is irregular, and its adverb is először. The English rendering of the ordinals is as follows:—
- ↑ Not hároman; the o is here dropped for euphonic reasons.
