Talk:Pabappa nouns

Numerals could be padded by the use of infixes the way verbs are. These would be, like Palauan, intended to represent classifiers. e.g. "four round objects" etc. But this is possible only if Pabappa somehow retains all of these for thousands of years.

Note that the main problem pairs, 4 ~ 8 and 5 ~ 10, would have been almost as problematic in the days of Babakiam. Five and ten are cognates, after all, although the similarity between 4 and 8 is a coincidence. (Or is it? It might just be "two fours".) The numbers for 4 and 10 (but not 5 and 8) could be made more distinct by adding an infix, even if the infix went on all of the numbers. Perhaps not though. If padded with -a(t)- "human" one would get:

4) bibibaa > piba 5) babibau > paba(r) 8) binibaa > pini 10) bap(b)ibaa > papi