The structure of Mesoamerican numeral systems with a comparison to non-Mesoamerican systems
Description
Kaufman (1973) has suggested that Mesoamerica may be a linguistic area, as well as a culture area, but that its status as such has not been systematically investigated. The purpose of this dissertation is to answer the seventh of his 20 questions concerning the linguistic area status of Mesoamerica. Specifically, the structures of Mesoamerican numeral systems are investigated in order to determine similarities and differences in those systems as opposed to the structures of other numeral systems, especially those in the Western Hemisphere I provide a definition of what numerals and numeral systems are and develop a terminology and methodology in order to consider the structure of numeral systems. These analyses are based principally on the cardinal numeral series for a variety of languages. Certain ancillary numeral series such as the ordinals and numeral classifiers are summarized where such information is available A wide variety of sources has been utilized in order to generate numeral lists for Mesoamerican languages. Although the lists are restricted to languages on which I found information, they reflect the linguistic and geographical variability of Mesoamerica. In separate sections, a variety of non-Mesoamerican Western Hemisphere and Asian numeral systems are presented in order to establish the similarities and differences between them and the Mesoamerican systems. Each list is analyzed in terms of its extent, provenience, level of European influence, and structure A variety of groupings are suggested for Mesoamerican languages based on the structure of each numeral system. A major division is proposed between a Central Mexican System and an Eastern Mexican System, with the former represented mainly by non-Mayan languages, while the latter is restricted to Mayan languages. Subdivisions of each of these two major divisions are proposed, and a preliminary chronology and development of these subdivisions is sketched. Some special subsystems in the Mayan languages, such as the cacao count and the differential use of terms for 20, are also discussed. An attempt is also made to determine if the structures of Mesoamerican numeral systems are reflected in indigenous graphic representations of numerals