Page:A grammar of the Bohemian or Cech language.djvu/45

 ﻿are substantives; sto is declined like slovo and tisíc like hrac. The dual is still found with sto, as dví stí (200), tři sta (300), čtyři sta (400), pít set (500). Tijžf has in the gen. plur. tisíc and tisíců; sto generally remains undeclined, especially after prepositions; príd sto lety.

The Hours of the Day.

The following phrases will illustrate some of these:—

Půl třetí, half-past two.

Tri čtvrti na třetí, a quarter to three.

Čtyři minuty na čtvrtou, four minutes to four.

Fractions of Numerals.

půl, polovice, a half. dví půle, two halves. třetina, a third. dví třetiny, two-thirds. tři čtvrte, three-fourths. čtyřipítiny, four-fifths. šestina, a sixth.

Collective Numerals.

Such are dvojice, a couple; patero, five together; sedmero, seven together, and others. It is no doubt from the point of view of the numbers being taken collectively that we are to explain the use of the neuter in the predicate when the subject expresses a quantity, as in the following instances : Pit jablek mni zbylo, I had five apples over. Čtyři sta jich padlo, four hundred of them fell. (Cf. Russian idiom.)

Distributives are expressed by the preposition po. Dal jim po šestí zlatých, he gave them six florins apiece.