Category talk:Ordinal numbers

Some of these (first, fourth) say they are adjectives, and the rest say they are determiners. Why the difference? --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

My fault. I had initially misidentified ordinals as determiners. Rodney Huddleston wrote to tell me "Cardinal numerals are indeed determiners, but ordinals are adjectives -- note the difference between `One student fainted' and *`First student fainted'. And fractions are nouns/NPs: see CGEL p.434." First is a good model for ordinal numbers.--Brett 01:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Now I even have a better idea of what a determiner is! --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 02:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)