limit only the top level categories and not the subcats pagenation

hello all!

i need to limit only the top level categories and not the subcats + pagenation

and the result will be something like:

categories(the limit):

cat
sub subsub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub
cat
sub sub sub sub sub sub
cat
sub sub sub sub sub sub
cat
sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub sub

because i have more then 4 categories(the top level one)
i need to pageignate the whole thing

does somebody knows how to do so?

thanks, ronen.

[No bumping, thank you.]