Is "novecentonovantanovemilanovecentonovantanove" one word? (That's what Treccani seems to suggest, mentioning for example the number "seicentocinquantaquattromilatrecentoventuno", i.e. 654321).
Or should it be "novecentonovantanovemila novecentonovantanove"?
Or "novecento novantanove mila novecento novantanove" (seriously?)? Or in a still different way?
Why?
Is there any agreement at all among linguists regarding rules for writing number words in Italian?
What is the longest single-word number in Italian, agreed upon by linguists/dictionaries? "Quattrocentoquarantaquattromilaquattrocentoquarantaquattro"?
Note that "quattrocentoquarantaquattromilaquattrocentoquarantaquattro" would beat "precipitevolissimevolmente" 58-26 in terms of number of characters.
@egreg
"Centomila" is one word, it is a cardinal numeral adjective; "un milione" is made of two words: "un", masculine indeterminative article, and "milione", masculine noun.
You say "centomila unità" but "un milione di unità" (not "unmilione unità"). Not quite the same.
Also note that 999999 can also be seen as 11110100001000111111 in the binary system, i.e.
219 + 218 + 217 + 216 + 214 + 29 + 25 + 24 + 23 + 22 + 21 + 20
or, by setting b = 2
,
1 · b19 + 1 · b18 + 1 · b17 + 1 · b16 + 0 · b15 + 1 · b14 + 0 · b13 + 0 · b12 + 0 · b11 + 0 · b10 + 1 · b9 + 0 · b8 + 0 · b7 + 0 · b6 + 1 · b5 + 1 · b4 + 1 · b3 + 1 · b2 + 1 · b1 + 1 · b0
but my understanding is that these are mathematical representations, not words as used in linguistics.
As to "tutt'al più", this is a "locuzione" (which is made of at least two words) while "tuttalpiù" is one word (1, 2, 3). Of course these are all linguistic conventions, not laws of nature.