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How do Mayan languages do ordinal numbers? I only have one source on Mayan and it isn't the greatest. I am trying to understand how to construct something like "2nd star". My "dictionary" lists ka' as meaning two or second, u as the 3rd person possessive, ye' as the classifier for divine bodies, tal as the ordinal classifier, and ek' as star.

From all that, it makes sense then that:
uka'tal ek'
3S-two-CLF star

But if ka' could mean second then would the following work?
ka'ye' ek'
second-CLF star

At first that seems like that should mean two stars but that would require ek' to be in the plural. I could see how the lack of concordance in this situation might signal ordinal, and I might steal that for a conlang, but is it a legal construction? Is even the first construction correct?

I'm taking a K'iche' class this semester. I have no idea what other Mayan languages do, but in K'iche' "second star" is

ukaab' lee ch'imil
second CLF star

Actually, that'd translate better as "the star is second", I think. lee ukaab'a ch'imil (or lu'kaab'a ch'imil with the elision) might be better. So you'd get something like

Nim lee ukaab'-a ch'imil.
big CLF second-LK star
"The second star is big."

According to my teacher, "two" is keb' and "second" is ukaab'.

Přemysl wrote:At first that seems like that should mean two stars but that would require ek' to be in the plural.

At least in K'iche, plural marking on a noun isn't necessary if there's a numeral. Most K'iche nouns don't have plural forms anyway; unless the noun refers to a human or (some) higher animals, you just use the pluralizing particle taq.

You are right as far as the plural goes. I found a few more grammars, although none of those give more good ordinal examples. But a Yucatec one did mention how the plural marker is not used with mayan numerals. If loaned spanish numbers are used then the plural may be used.