Numeral adjectives in the Tatar kyssa texts of the late XIX – early XX centuries

Abstract

The goal of this research lies in analysis of the numeral adjectives used in works of kyssa genre. The object of this article is the kyssa texts published in the late XIX – early XX centuries in the Tatar language. These texts emerged under the influence of Oriental literature, gained popularity among the Tatar people, and greatly contributed to formation of the norms of modern Tatar literary language. The quantitative numeral adjectives are used in kyssa genre for expressing temporal relations, uncertainty, number of objects, and age. Identical to modern Tatar language, divisional numeral adjectives are formed by the affixes -ar, -är and -äm. Approximate numeral adjectives are represented by paired words. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that morphological peculiarities of the texts of kyssa genre have not previously been the subject of special research in the Tatar linguistics. The acquired results indicate that the texts of kyssa genre contain a relatively large number of numeral adjectives, namely quantitative numeral adjectives in both nominative and cult meanings. Other categories of numeral adjectives are rather passive in the texts of this genre; their grammatical forms and meanings can be traced in modern Tatar literary language.