A computational grammar and lexicon for Maltese

fi (‘in’) il- bieb fil-bieb (‘in the door’)
fi il- dar fid-dar (‘in the house’)
fi il- skola fl-iskola (‘in the school’)
2.3.2 Numerals
While there did exist a GF implementation of numerals in Maltese 1 , this was hugely simplified
and quite incorrect. The NumeralsMlt module described here has been completely rewritten.
Cardinals
These have one of two forms depending on whether they appear in isolation or in a construct
state. Azzopardi (2007, p. 133) calls these “type A” and “type B” numerals, which in (Brother
Henry F.S.C., 1980, p. 202) are described as użu aġġettiv (‘adjectival use’) and użu nominali (‘nominal
use’) respectively.
For singular nouns, the numeral for ‘one’ comes after the noun or omitted completely, e.g.
raġel [wieħed] (‘one man’). In expressions of quantity from two to ten, the numeral precedes the
noun which appears in its plural form: erbgħa ħwienet (‘four shops’). When expressing exactly
two of a noun which has a dual form, the numeral is omitted and this form is used: sentejn (‘two
years’). Beyond the number 10, the noun always appears in the singular, e.g. tlieta u għoxrin
tifla (‘twenty-one girls’). Between eleven and nineteen, the particle -il (not to be confused with
the definite article il-) is suffixed added to the numeral, e.g. tnax-il tifel (‘twelve boys’).
Hundreds and thousands are constructed in a similar way to English using mija and elf
respectively, e.g. tlett mija u erba’ (‘three hundred and four’), elf, erba’ mija u għoxrin (‘one thousand,
four hundred and twenty’).
Ordinals
The ordinal numerals from one to ten have their own specific forms, which all include the
definite article, e.g. it-tielet premju (‘the third prize’). Ordinals above the tenth are expressed by
means of definite article with the respective cardinal form: il-ħamsa u għoxrin ta’ Diċembru (‘the
twenty-fifth of December’). (Borg, 1974)
Implementation
The RGL supports numerals both in words and as digits, with the Numeral and Digits categories
respectively. Their linearisation types are given below:
lincat
Numeral = {
s : CardOrd => NumCase => Str ;
n : NumForm
1 Available at http://www.grammaticalframework.org/examples/numerals/maltese.gf, accessed 2013-05-08
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