How to parse. ...

Par. 213.] WORDS OF NUMBER.

139

Number and Amount present many irregularities.
The same word is used sometimes1. As a Numeral Adjective, answering the question " How many?"
2. As an Adverb, answering the question " How
much?" "In how great a degree? " &c.
3. As a Noun, being the name of a collection, e.g.
"6 score."
213 Hence the principal "Cause of Irregularity " here
will be the " Confusion of Constructions," viz. the
Constructions of an Adjective, Adverb, and Noun.
(1) "A dozen (of) pens, a hundred (of) men, half (of)
the country,1 all (of) the men, more (of) pudding,
a little (of) pudding." 2
Here the Regular Construction would have
been
(2) "Hundred men, twenty men," &c.
But a feeling that each number represented a
single "collection" led to the insertion of "a"
without the grammatically consistent and necessary
insertion of "of," so that the Noun Construction
1 Note that you cannot say " quarter the country." Why? Because " half" is more commonoly use(d than " quarter " (insom uch that
half" is sometimes used for "'part," e g. " the larger half "); and
remember irref/ularitiesfeed upon custom. It is where men have to
say the same thingls qften and quickly, that men are most apt to cut
andl clip and modify their language to suit their convenience. Hence,
in Latin, " venio Romam," but " venio ad italiam."
2 See Par. 217.