数詞「21」のことを英語で何というか？　もちろん twenty-one である．しかし，歴史的には異なる表現法があった．伝統的には one and twenty が普通だったが，ときに twenty and one もあった．複合数詞は，1の位と10の位の数のどちらを前に置くのか，接続詞 and を用いるのか，といった観点から探ると，揺れ動いてきた歴史があることがわかる．身近に複合数詞を研究している大学院生がおり，私もこの問題にはアンテナを張っているのだが，切り口が豊富にあるなという印象をもっている．
　2桁の複合数詞について，Jespersen (§§17.1₄--₆) が歴史上の変化と変異を概観している．この問題を考察する手始めとして，引用しておこう．

   17.1₄. In additions of 'tens' and 'ones' this 'one' now generally follows the 'ten' (twenty-one), but originally it always preceded it: one-and-twenty, a word-order which is still used except in numerals above 50.
   The only examples I have noticed of the latter word-order in numerals above 50 are the following: Sheridan 197 she's six-and-fifty if she's an hour | Coleridge 452 in Köhln . . . I counted two and seventy stenches | Wells TB 163 Fifty-three days I had outward . . . three and fifty days of life cooped up | Walpole ST 285 never in all his five-and-fifty years.
   17.1₅. We may find both types of word-order in close proximity: Sh H5 1.2.57 Untill foure hundred one and twentie yeeres . . . ib 61 Foure hundred twentie six | Defoe R 330 eight and twenty years . . . thirty and five years | Thack E 1.147 accepted the Thirty-nine Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other nine-and-thirty with an entire obedience | Kipling PT 43 She was two-and-twenty, and he was thirty-three | Caine M 131 you are still so young. Let me see, is it eight-and-twenty? --- Twenty-six, said Philip | Jerome T 37 P. was forty-seven ... W. was three-and-twenty | Wells N 142 He was six and twenty, and I twenty-two | ib 199 I grew ... between three and twenty and twenty-seven.
   Mr. Walt Arneson states: "Used in U.S. only occasionally, for stylistic effect or facetiously."
   17.1₆. Compounds of two numerals denoting a number below one hundred have and between the two members if the small numeral precedes: one-and-twenty. If it follows the higher numeral, there is generally no connecting word: twenty-one. Especially in early authors we may find the type twenty-and-two, e.g. Malory 101 xx & viij knyghtes | AV Luke 15.7 ninety and nine iust persons | Swift P 132 there are thirty-and-two good bits in a shoulder of veal | Fielding T 1.17 | Goldsm 645 | Carlyle S 16 | Bennett A 50.
   If two neighbouring numerals are to be used, the type with the small number first is commonest, as in this case the higher numeral need not be repeated: Thack E 2.150 though now five or six and forty years | Locke CA 315 Between Nadia and him there was but a separation of two or three years; between Nadia and myself two or three and twenty | Crofts Cask 220 a girl of perhaps two or three-and-twenty.

　現代でも古風な表現として用いられる one-and-twenty が，50以上の数については，これが見られないというのが不可思議である．また，同一の文脈で異なるパターンの複合数詞が現われるというのは興味深い．統語論の話題でありながら形態論にも深く関わっており，問題の位置づけについても考察に値する．

　・ Jespersen, Otto. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Part 7. Syntax. 1954. London: Routledge, 2007.

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