ABSTRACT
The feminine forms of the numerals ‘3’ and ‘4’ in Celtic and Indo-Iranian have attracted much attention and inspired numerous efforts to make sense of their phonological shape and morphological structure. This chapter examines various aspects of their reconstruction and attempts to throw new light not only on the irregular sound changes that affected them, but also on the original functions of their constituent morphemes. In search of insight provided by functional analogies, the behaviour and properties of the Proto-Indo-European numerals in question are compared with the expression of feminine reference in modern Nepali, a language possessing grammatical gender as well as numeral classifiers due to contact with neighbouring Tibeto-Burman languages. The morphosyntactic and semantic analogies between numeral phrases in Nepali and Proto-Indo-European help to determine the role of internal and external factors, such as inherited typology and language contact, in the rise and loss of morphosyntactic complexity.
