摘要：The Amerind language family includes all the aboriginal languages of North and South America, except for those belonging to the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene families. Comparative linguistic evidence from extant (or attested) Amerind languages indicates that Proto-Amerind-the language from which all Amerind languages derive-used a system of counting in which an obligatory numeral prefix, * ne -, preceded the numeral root. The first three numerals in Proto-Amerind seem to have been * ne-k'we ‘1, ’* ne-pale ‘2, ’and * ne-qwalas ‘3.’A fourth numeral, Proto-Amerind * ta-pale ‘4, ’combined a reflexive prefix with the Proto-Amerind root for‘2’in order to express the number‘4.’
