A “copula” is a linguistic term for a small linking word connecting a subject to a predicative expression. In English, the copula is the verb “to be”: “Elrond is a man; Elrond is old”. In Quenya, the verb ná- may be used as a copula, but it is often optional. It is perfectly normal in Quenya to put the predicative expression immediately after the subject without any joining word at all: Elerondo nér; Elerondo yára. These expressions can be distinguished from normal adjective use because the adjective follows rather than precedes the noun: yára Elerondo “old Elrond” vs. Elerondo yára “Elrond [is] old”. As Tolkien described it:
An adjective following a noun, or if preceding separated from it (even by an article) was in Eldarin, and also in normal Quenya, predicative. So Q Sindar i Eldar Malariando “Grey are the Elves of Beleriand”; i rokkor rindi “the horses are swift”. In predicative use the adjective was inflected as the described noun (PE21/77-78).
As a copula “be, is” is not usually expressed in Quenya where the meaning is clear: sc. in such expressions as “A is good” where the adjective (contrary to the usual order in Quenya of a qualifying adjective) follows: the normal Quenya for this is A mára. But when the subject is not expressed, as usually in the impersonal “neuter”, e.g. “it is good” = “that is good, very well”, ná is used: so mára ná; also when it is postponed as in Galadriel’s Lament, Si vanwa ná, Romello vanwa, Valimar (PE17/93).
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Tolkien does not explain why the copula is displaced to the end, but it is my opinion that, in a phrase like Elerondo yára (ná), the optional ná could be added as an afterthought to emphasize that this phrase was, in fact, a “to be” statement. The more complex the phrase, the more likely it is that the ná will be added, as with lá karita i hamil mára alasaila (ná) given above. This pattern became the norm and eventually a grammatical rule.
In the past or future tense the verb ná- generally appears in the normal position in between the subject and its complement, as in Eldar náner ataformaiti or hríve nauva urra given above. There are also examples of aorist ná appearing in the middle of complex phrases where its presence reduces ambiguity: A (ná) calima lá B “A is brighter than B” (PE17/90). So perhaps “a well loved man is a happy man” would be mai melda atan ná alassea atan, or “nine times two is eighteen” = nerte yullume ná tolque.
The na can also appear at the beginning of a phrase when used as an impersonal imperative: na care indómelya “thy will be done, *(lit.) be done will-thy”; na aire esselya “hallowed be thy name, *(lit.) be hallowed name-thy” (VT43/12). This, however, is probably just a reduced variant of the proper imperative á na, as in á na márie “be well” (PE17/162) vs. na márie > namárie “farewell, (lit.) be well”.
-The verb ná- can be used together with the dative in certain formulaic expressions describing the emotional state of a person: nas mára nin “it is good for me” meaning “I like it” (VT49/30); náne márie nin “it was well to me” meaning “I was glad” (PE22/158). Whether this was used only in a few expressions or was a more general pattern isn’t clear.
+The verb ná- can be used together with the dative in certain formulaic expressions describing the emotional state of a person: nás mára nin “it is good for me” meaning “I like it” (VT49/30); náne márie nin “it was well to me” meaning “I was glad” (PE22/158). Whether this was used only in a few expressions or was a more general pattern isn’t clear.
The verb ná- is the simplest way to express “yes” in response to questions about facts (PE22/166): “Are the horses of the Rohirrim good?”; ná “yes, (lit.) it is”, with slightly more emphatic variant nása “it is so”. It is not used to answer questions of opinion or requests, however, which instead use sá (†þá) “yes, I agree, I will” (PE22/166), as in: “Do you like this? Will you help me?”; sá.
The verb ná- is not the only Quenya verb for “to be”. There is also ea- “to be, to exist”. Tolkien described the difference between those two verbs in Late Notes on Verb Structure written in 1969:
Stem of verb “exist” (have being in primary world of history) was √EŊE, distinct from √NA joining adjs./nouns/pronouns in statements (or wishes) asserting (or desiring) a thing to have a certain quality, or to be the same as another. eŋe is not followed by any adj. or noun but only by a[n] adverb (or negated adverb) mainly[?] of time. Present continuous of √EŊE is ëa “It exists” (PE22/147).
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Thus ná is used for describing the qualities of a thing: “A is B”, whereas ea is used for statements about its actual existence within the universe: “A exists”. There are also examples of ea being used with a prepositional phrase or adverb:
-There are two ways the above might be interpreted. First, it may be that ea is required for “to be” with subordinate clauses, prepositional phrases or adverbial expressions that are not, properly speaking, attributes of the subject: Elerondo yára (ná) “Elrond is old” versus Elerondo ea Imladrisse “Elrond is in Rivendell”. As a counterexample to this, we have the statement cé tulis, ní nauva tanome “*if he/she comes, I will be there” where ná- is used with a location (there), as well as the statement above that ea is used mainly with adverbs of time. Alternately, it may be significant that both the above statements using ea refer to Eru, and ea may be required by the extra-universal nature of divine/spiritual beings who don’t properly exist within space and time; hat-tip to Lokyt for pointing this out to me. So: Elerondo náne Ardasse “Elrond was in Arda” versus Eru ea han Ea “Eru exists beyond the universe”.
-Statements of Tolkien’s from late 1940s indicate that a more specific verb than “is” would usually be used to describe locations; in this conceptual period, Tolkien used ea as the general verb for “to be”:
+A more literal translation of the above would be: “our Father who exists beyond existence” and “the One who above all thrones exists forever”.
+Statements of Tolkien’s from late 1940s indicate that a more specific verb than “is” would often be used to describe locations:
Generally also the verb “be” was omitted in questions and statements concerning location, or if a verb was required one proper to the precise circumstances was employed, as “be found, lie, stand, dwell etc.” (PE22/123).
Where “is, be” refers to location = be placed, found, is to be had; or to stay, remain, abide, be situated dwell, etc. then various verbs of more precise and particularly applicable senses can be used, and usually are (PE22/125).
-Thus it seems the normal practice in Quenya was to use verbs like mar- “dwell” to express location: Elerondo mare Imladrisse “Elrond dwells in Rivendell”. I recommend this for Neo-Quenya as well, since it avoids the entire question of whether to use ná or ea. However, if you do want to just use “is”, I currently believe that ná would be used for this purpose: Elerondo Imladrisse (ná).
+Thus it seems the normal practice in Quenya was to use alternate verbs like mar- “dwell” to express location: Elerondo mare Imladrisse “Elrond dwells in Rivendell”. However, if you do want to just use “is”, I currently believe that ná would be used for this purpose: Elerondo Imladrisse (ná).
For more information on the conjugation of the verbs ná- and ea- as well as the conceptual development of the verbs themselves, see the entry on irregular verbs.
Conceptual Development: In earlier periods of Quenya’s conceptual development, other verbs were used for “to be” expressions, as discussed in the entry on irregular verbs. These earlier verb forms tended to put the verb in the usual position between the subject and its complement; the displacement of the copula after the predicate seems to be a relatively late idea. However at various points Tolkien used a special “stative” construction that suffixed the “to be” verb directly to the predicate adjective; see that entry for further discussion.
The idea that the copula was optional, however, dates at least back to the late 1940s; in this conceptual period, Tolkien used ye >> ea as the general verb for “to be”:
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Qenya name for the Danes, apparently a phonetic adaptation of that name (LT2/306).]]>
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The Quenya dative is used for the indirect object of a phrase and is formed using the suffix -n. The indirect object is the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as opposed to the direct object which is the immediate target. In English, the indirect object comes immediately before the direct object in a sentence: “I give you the knife”, “I wish you well”. Alternately, English can indicate the indirect object with prepositions like “to” or “for”: “I give the knife to you”, “I wish happiness for you”. In Quenya, these phrases would use the dative:
- antan i cirma len “I give the knife to you”; le-n = “to you”.
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- alcar i Ataren ar i Yondon ar i Airefean “glory [be] to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost” (VT43/36).
In the last phrase Tolkien first wrote faire aistan for “to the Holy Ghost”, another example of the dative being applied to an entire noun phrase: faire “spirit” plus aista “holy”. Here the dative is added to the adjective (last declinable word).
-Idiomatic uses of the dative: The use of the dative to indicate a beneficiary appears in a number of idiomatic expressions, notably nas mára nin “it is good to me = I like it” (VT49/30), or mára tyen “good to you = like” (PE22/166). Another idiomatic use of the dative is in conjunction with the impersonal ec- “it may happen, it is possible”. Thus ece nin “it is possible for me = I can/I may” (VT49/20, 34):
+Idiomatic uses of the dative: The use of the dative to indicate a beneficiary appears in a number of idiomatic expressions, notably nás mára nin “it is good to me = I like it” (VT49/30), or mára tyen “good to you = like” (PE22/166). Another idiomatic use of the dative is in conjunction with the impersonal ec- “it may happen, it is possible”. Thus ece nin “it is possible for me = I can/I may” (VT49/20, 34):
Certain prepositional phrases require the use of the dative, notably the preposition rá “on behalf of”:
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Datives | Sg. | Du. | Part. Pl. | Pl. |
vocalic: cirya | ciryan | ciryant | ciryalin | ciryain |
e-noun: lasse | lassen | lassent | lasselin | lassin |
-consonantal: atan | atanen | *atanun | *atanélin | *atanin |
+consonantal: atan | atanen | *atanun | *atallin | *atanin |
Forms marked with a * are unattested and hypothetical.
The long dative: There are a few datives formed with -na instead of -n. This is probably tied to the ancient origin of the dative suffix, which was derived from primitive ✶-na “to”, also related to the allative suffix -nna (VT49/14). Thus these “long datives” are probably archaic, poetic and possibly emphatic. For example:
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Like English, Quenya has singular and plural nouns, with singular unmarked and plural marked by -i or -r. However, Quenya has two additional “special plurals”: the dual used when there are only two of an item (“both”) and the partitive-plural when the plural represents a subset of a larger group (“some”). Thus:
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Quenya has a definite article i that is more or less equivalent to English “the”: i atan = “the man” [human]. Like English, the definite article is used to specify a definite thing specifically referred to (“the man”), as opposed to an indefinite thing (“a man”). Unlike English, there is no indefinite article in Quenya (English “a”); indefinite nouns are simply unmarked: atan = “(a) man”. There are quite a few real world languages that have a definite article but no indefinite article, such as Welsh or Hebrew.
Like English, Quenya may use i in the titles of persons, especially for divinity: i Ataren ar i Yondon ar i Airefëan “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (VT43/36); i Héru aselyë “the Lord is with thee” (VT43/28), i Eru “the One” (UT/305). However, Quenya seems less inclined to use the definite article for sobriquets: Atanatar Alcarin vs. “Atanatar the Glorious” (LotR/1038), Varda Aratarya (lit. “Varda [in] her sublimity”) vs. “Varda the Sublime”; Quennar Onótimo vs. “Quennar the *Reckoner” (MR/50), though the last of these did also appear as Quennar i Onótimo (MR/48). The definite article is, however, used in the title of documents and narratives: i Equessi Rúmilo “The Sayings of Rúmil” (WJ/398); i Túrin i Cormaron “The Lord of the Rings” (PBL).
In cases where two definite nouns were part of a single phrase, Quenya often only marks the first of these with a definite article: i Valaron arcanwar “the thrones of the Valar [lit. the Valar’s thrones]” (PE22/147); i arani Eldaron “the kings of the Eldar” (WJ/369); i tyulma ciryava “the mast of the ship” (PE21/80); i coimas Eldaron “the lembas of the Eldar” (PM/395). There are some rather intricate interactions between the definite article and genitive or possessive modifiers: see the entry on definiteness and the genitive/possessive for further details.
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The typescript version (PE14/71) has the same set of rules and examples. There is no sign of this suffix from the 1930s forward; later on -ma was mostly used as an instrumental suffix.
In the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948, Tolkien briefly considered having a distinct but archaic accusative article a: “in Q. only as in AQ replacing the definite article i before an objective noun i kiryā, a kiryā” (PE21/76), but he quickly rejected this notion (PE21/76 note #24).
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Quenya is less inclined to use the definite article than English. It seems the definite article is only required if the definiteness of the noun must be emphasized or is not otherwise specified. One interesting example is the phrase:
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To put things another way, the fact that Quenya does not have an indefinite article like English “a, an” is a strong indication that “indefiniteness” is not semantically important in that language, especially when compared to English and other European languages. The absence of the definite article in Quenya does not necessarily mean the noun in question is indefinite. It simply means it is not specifically marked for definiteness, and could be either definite or indefinite depending on context. In English if you were to say “king of Gondor” with no article (as in “Aragorn, king of Gondor”), you could mean “a king of Gondor” or “the king of Gondor” depending on how the phrase was being used.
It may be that Tolkien imagined a more complex system than the one described here, but we can’t readily determine how it worked given the contradictory examples from the corpus. I think the system described above is a reasonable compromise.
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Like most languages, Quenya had demonstrative elements that could be used to indicate near (“this”) or far (“that”) objects. There are Late Period documents on demonstratives that remain unpublished, so the analysis in this entry must be considered preliminary and incomplete. Tolkien experimented with a variety of forms for the demonstratives throughout his writings, and his use of demonstratives was not entirely consistent. Nevertheless, some broad themes run throughout his changing conceptions.
In most of his writings from the 1910s through the 60s, the primary basis for the demonstratives were the primitive roots √SI “this, here, now” (VT43/24; Ety/SI; GL/68) and √TA “that, there, then” (PE17/93; Ety/TA), though in Tolkien’s earliest writings √TA seems to mean “this” (QL/87). Two more roots tied to demonstratives were √YA and √EN, the former for demonstratives “pointing back” (PE17/66; Ety/YA; QL/105) and the latter for demonstratives “pointing forward or beyond” (Ety/EN; VT41/16). In Quenya the root √YA lost most of its demonstrative function, coming to be used primarily for relative pronouns:
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This general continuity of pronominal roots masks a lot of variation in derived forms, however. The on-again off-again demonstrative nature of sa is noted above, but there were various minor shifts in meaning and function for derivatives of other roots as well, along with tangents into still more roots. For example, in some late notes Tolkien introduced primitive ✶khĭn- as an explanation of S. hí “now”, and gave it a Quenya derivative hí “here” (VT49/34). Whether this was an enduring or transient idea is unclear.
Analyzing the evolution of the derivatives for demonstrative roots is difficult, as many of the demonstrative paradigms Tolkien wrote about are still unpublished except as fragments within discussions of unrelated documents. Hopefully future publications will provide more information.
Neo-Quenya: As outlined above, I would advocate using derivatives of √SI and √TA as the near and far demonstratives in Quenya. I would also use ᴹQ. enta for a third remote demonstrative. I would avoid sa-demonstratives in Neo-Quenya, but I would not reject them as part of Neo-Eldarin in general, because they are the most likely basis for the best-known Sindarin demonstratives.
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Derived verbs, as opposed to basic verbs, are those formed by adding some kind of verbal suffix to another word or root. The root may be verbal or non-verbal (noun or adjective). Strictly speaking, the derived verbs are not themselves a distinct verb class, but are rather a collection of similar and related verbal classes. Nevertheless it is useful to have a term for grouping grammatical features common to many types of verbs. The major classes of derived verbs are the causatives, formatives and “derivative” verbs based on adjective or noun stems (an unfortunately similarity in terminology).
Causatives: The causatives are the result of adding the causative suffixes -tā or -yā to another stem, verbal or otherwise: tul- “to come” vs. tulta- “to send for, fetch, summon, (lit.) cause to come”. Of the two suffixes, -tā is the more common. The resulting verbs are transitive (taking objects).
Formatives: The formatives are the result of adding the suffixes -t(ă) or -y(ă) to a stem, and they are most commonly used with roots which for some reason cannot be used as verbs by themselves: orya- “rise” from the root √OR “up(wards)”. The suffix -y(ă) is more common, to better differentiate the causatives and the formatives. The resulting verbs are often intransitive (unable to take objects).
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The Quenya dual form is a special plural used for when there are exactly two of the items in question: atanu “two men”, lasset “both leaves”. It can be translated as “two”, “both” or “(the) pair of”. It is used most frequently with items that are a “natural pair”, such as body parts:
- hendu “two eyes”, sg. hen (WJ/337).
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³ Nouns whose last consonant cluster contains t, d change final -t to -s.
The parenthetic consonantal suffixes often added only the short form with various assimilations.
The occasional replacement of -t by -s in these declensions seems to be an earlier (1920s and 30s) solution to Quenya’s dislike of sequential dental stops, which in Late Quenya (1950+) was handled by choosing u-duals over t-duals.
+We don’t have a lot of examples of how consonantal duals might have been formed in Tolkien’s later writings: the two best examples hendu “eyes” and hlaru “ears” are likely based on ancient “natural” u-dual forms, and don’t give much information on how duals would be formed for “ordinary” consonantal nouns. There is, however, a set of deleted “genitive honorifics”: -táro, -tárion, -táruo from base -tar in a set of notes from late 1950s or early 1960s (PE17/58). This implies (a) consonantal nouns use u-duals and (b) singular noun case forms are added to the u-dual. That’s the system I currently recommend until further evidence appears.
Neo-Quenya: Many other Neo-Quenya courses (including those of Helge Fauskanger, Thorsten Renk and Tamas Ferencz) suggest that consonantal nouns should also use t-duals with a joining vowel -e-: atanet “two men”, as opposed to my suggestion of atanu above. I believe this use of a joining vowel was originally popularized by Helge Fauskanger in his Quenya Course, and from there has infiltrated many Neo-Quenya documents.
There is no evidence that Tolkien ever used this formation, however, and I think it is more likely Quenya used the u-dual in such circumstances. In fairness to other Neo-Quenya authors, Tolkien did say the u-dual was originally used for “natural pairs” (Let/427, PE21/73) and most of the Late Quenya (1950+) u-dual examples fall into that category (body parts). I am of the opinion that this ancient distinction was mostly lost by the Parmaquesta/Tarquesta period. The consonantal inflections from the 1920s and 30s mostly use u-duals, with the exception of version 5c which seems to use a joining vowel -a-.
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- A verb in the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s, a combination of ᴹ✶et “out” and ᴹ✶kelu- “flow, well up” (PE22/103), whose phonological developments mirrored ehtelë.
+ A verb in the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s, a combination of primitive ᴹ✶et “out” and ᴹ✶kelu- “flow, well up” (PE22/103), whose phonological developments mirror ehtelë.
Conceptual Development: It seems to be a later iteration of (archaic) ᴱQ. †kektelu- “bubble up” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, a verb form of ᴱQ. †kektele “fountain” (QL/46).
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A verb for “awake” appearing in its past or perfect form ekkoitanie “might awake” in Koivienéni sentence from the late 1930s (VT27/7), probably a combination of ᴹQ. et “out” and the verb ᴹQ. koita-.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer to use the verb ᴺQ. cuita- for “to waken, rouse”.
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+ In Quenya a short final vowel is sometimes lost before another word beginning with a vowel, a phenomenon known as elision. Examples appear for many combinations of vowels:
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+Where these losses occur, they are for vowels that carry little-to-no semantic weight. Examples include:
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+- Elision for a preposition/conjunction: epe “among”: A anamelda na ep’ ilya “A is dearest of all” (PE17/57).
+- Elision for an adjective: métima “last”: man cenuva métim’ andúne? “Who shall see the last evening?” (MC/222).
+- Elision for a noun: nando “valley”: Nand’ Ondoluncava “Stonewain Valley” (PE17/28).
+- Elision for a noun case suffix: lúmenna “upon the hour”: lúmenn’ omentielvo “on the hour of our meeting” (LotR/81).
+- Elision for an uninflected aorist verb: þake “close”: á þak’ i fende, mekin “close the door, please” (PE22/166).
+- Elision for a subject suffix or pronoun: lye “you”: aly’ arca meterni “pray for us [me]” (VT43/33).
+- Elision for an object pronoun: me “us”: mal ám’ etelehta ulcullo: násië “but deliver us from evil: Amen” (VT43/23).
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+As a further example, at one point Tolkien seems to have explained the conjunction ar “and” as the result of ancient aða or asa, which became ara reduced by elision to ar’ before vowels and then generalized to the form ar before consonants: “Quenya ‘and’ ar is for as(a), in sandhi [alternate form based on position] before vowel” (PE17/41). There are, however, examples similar to the above where elision does not occur:
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+This inconsistency makes it hard to determine a pattern, but I think elision is likely to occur in the following circumstances (from most to least likely):
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+- With disyllabic prepositions like imbe “between”, imbi “among”, ara “beside”, epe “before”: ar’ i mindon “beside the tower”.
+- With the allative suffix -nna and possibly -llo and -sse as well (though there are no examples): ciryann’ earenduro “to the ship of the mariner”.
+- With adjectives preceding the noun they modify, especially longer adjectives before longer words: vanim’ ambarónë “a beautiful dawn”
+- With an uninflected aorist verb or infinitive preceding the definite article i: i atan mat’ i massa “the man eats the bread”
+- For nouns only in cases where they function as a pseudo-prefix in a name, the only example being Nand’ Ondoluncava above, though vowel losses are often seen in actual compounds.
+
+I also think elision is most likely when (a) the two vowels are identical, (b) it involves two short words that can be pronounced as a unit, or (c) for longer words when the result would not cause the primary stress of both words to become adjacent. I think the elision of pronouns in Quenya prayers of the 1950s were a transient idea, and I wouldn’t use it in Quenya writing generally (there are counter-examples within the prayers themselves, and no examples outside the prayers). I also think elision probably occurs more freely in poetry, especially when it aids the poetic meter. I think it is likely that elision is never fully required, and that you always have the option of pronouncing all vowels when speaking slowly and distinctly.
+Elision with i “the”: It seems that the definite article i is generally not elided before vowels, even when the following vowel is identical: sustane Manweo súle ten i indo Sindicollo “*the spirit of Manwe blew unto the heart of Thingol” (NM/239). However, i might be elided if the preceding vowel is i or e. We have two examples of this:
+
+In the first example, the preposition mi “in” simplifies to mí with long í when preceding a definite article (mi i); Tolkien glossed mī as “in the” for the prose version of Namárie making it clear it included the definite article. Since mi is the only monosyllabic preposition ending in i, it is likely unique in this respect; any polysyllabic prepositions like imbi would likely undergo elision instead.
+The second example is especially interesting, since ’n is a particularly abnormal form for the definite article. There is at least one other example of a variant definite article in being used before a vowel: mana i·coimas in·Eldaron “what is the ‘coimas’ of the Eldar”. Thus it seems in cases where the article i is “squeezed” between two vowels it might further reduce to ’n: utúlie i aurë → utúlie in aurë → utúlie’n aurë. Hat tip to Raccoon on the notion that this ’n is a definite article; I first got the idea from his discussion of the definite article, though my guesses on the mechanics of its appearance are not exactly the same as his.
+Elision with ar “and”: We have one example of elision of the infinitive of an a-stem verb before the conjunction ar “and”: cuita’r pare “live and learn” (PE22/154). It is not clear why this is cuita’r and not cuit’ ar (analogous to á þak’ i fende above), since the pronunciation would be the same. Perhaps in this case the final vowel of the verb is considered more semantically significant than the vowel of ar. In any case, it seems that for pronunciation the two a’s would merge in this circumstance as well.
+This kind of elision of the initial letter of ar is not a universal phenomenon, however: sínen i·anda nyarne metta ar taina andaurenya na quanta “*with this the long tale ends and my extended long day is complete” (Minor-Doc/1955-CT).
+Conceptual Development: There are examples of elision in Tolkien’s earlier writing, but not enough information to determine if there were any conceptual shifts on how and when it occurred. Elision does seem to be more frequent in the 1950s and 60s than it was earlier, however.
+One significant exception to this are the subject pronoun prefixes from the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s, which underwent modification or elision when appearing before verbs beginning with vowels (PE14/86). There is no evidence of such elision in Tolkien’s brief restoration of subject prefixes in the late 1940s (for example in the Quenya Verbal System, PE22/99-127), but that could just be lack of examples.
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- Younger brother of and , and grandfather of in one version of that character’s history (UT/233, WJ/350). The meaning of this name is unclear, but it could be a combination of “star” and the suffix “person”.]]>
+ Younger brother of and , and grandfather of Celeborn in one version of that character’s history (UT/233, WJ/350). The meaning of this name is unclear, but it could be a combination of “star” and the suffix “person”.]]>
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In addition to ordinary independent pronouns, Quenya has a set of emphatic pronouns that resemble the subject suffixes with a vocalic augment, e- or i-:
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Neo-Quenya: For the purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would form emphatic pronouns by adding an e-augment to subject suffixes, with the exception for forms attested with an i-augment: inye, inque, isse, inte. I would also use *itye for the 2nd person singular familiar emphatic pronoun, based on the (probably abandoned) 2nd person singular familiar emphatic pronoun ilke. I would use 3rd singular isse over esse, to better disambiguate it from esse “name”. If you prefer the 3rd plural subject suffix -lte over -nte, I would recommend *ilte as its emphatic form based on its possessive suffix *-(i)lta (VT49/17).
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One special subgroup of vocalic nouns are those that end in the vowel e, or “e-nouns”. Frequently these have inflectional suffixes identical to those of other vocalic nouns, but they differ significantly in plural forms. In particular, they do not (normally) use the plural suffix -r, but instead form their plurals by changing their final e to i. The details of these forms and their historical developments are discussed in the entries on plural nouns and for the individual noun cases.
Origins of e-nouns: There are two sets of primitive nouns that would produce e-nouns: those that primitively end in ē (and ĕ if this vowel survived into modern Quenya) and those that primitively end in ĭ, because short final [i], [u] became [e], [o] in the phonetic development of the Elvish languages. For purposes of discussion, let us label these subgroups as ē-nouns and ĭ-nouns. The second subgroup differs in its singular forms and in compounds, where the final ĭ is usually preserved. Thus for the nouns lasse “leaf” and súre (súri-) “wind”:
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But Tolkien indicated these were archaic variants, replaced by the forms of ē-nouns, with the ancient ĭ vowel preserved only in the singular adverbial cases: sirinta, sirillo, sirisse (the allative suffix was -nta in this conceptual period).
Conceivably, similar inflections may exist in Late Quenya, so that the genitive singular of súre might be *súryo rather than *súrio. I consider that unlikely, however, and would use súrio in my own Neo-Quenya writing.
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- hrón (sometimes rhón) with the sense “body”, but it was altered >> , later >> (MR/231). The sense of hrón was changed to the “substance, matter” of Arda, but this was later changed >> orma (MR/218), which was elsewhere .]]>
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+ hrón (sometimes rhón) with the sense “body”, but it was altered >> , later >> (MR/231). The sense of hrón was changed to the “substance, matter” of Arda, but this was later changed >> orma (MR/218), which was elsewhere .]]>
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- A word appearing as fā in 1968 notes on primitive monosyllables as a derivative of ✶phā “breath, puff of breath” (VT47/35). Tolkien said this word survived in Quenya, but in a later sentence he wrote Q. fawa, foa, perhaps indicating its more common form was foa. The form foa appeared unglossed in 1964 notes on Dalath Dirnen (DD), and also in 1957 Quenya Notes (QN) as a derivative of √PHAW “emit (foul breath etc.)” and an element in foalóke, probably = “*breath-dragon” (PE17/181). As such, I consider foa the most likely Quenya form and “breath, puff of breath” its most likely meaning.
+ A word appearing as fā in 1968 notes on primitive monosyllables as a derivative of ✶phā “breath, puff of breath” (VT47/35). Tolkien said this word survived in Quenya, but in a later sentence he wrote Q. fawa, foa, perhaps indicating its more common form was foa. The form foa appeared unglossed in 1964 notes on Dalath Dirnen (DD), and also in 1957 Quenya Notes (QN) as a derivative of √PHAW “emit (foul breath etc.)” and an element in foalóke, probably = “*breath-dragon” (PE17/181). As such, I consider foa the most likely Quenya form and “breath, puff of breath” its most likely meaning.
Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, this word appeared as ᴱQ. foa “hoard, treasure” under the early root ᴱ√FOƷO “hide, hoard, store up, lay up in secret”, also as an element in ᴱQ. Foalôke as the name of a dragon (QL/38).
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Common Eldarin had another competing syntax for indicating continuous action, a “frequentative” form made by reduplicating the initial part of the verb stem; I use the term frequentative for this formation based on the gloss of the verb sisíla- “shine (frequentative)” (MC/223). This formation (perhaps) became the present continuous tense in Telerin, but did not become its own verb tense in Quenya or Sindarin, as described by Tolkien in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) from the early 1950s:
Reduplication often, accompanied by lengthening or fortification, or by “dynamic” lengthening of one of the base-consonants, was another feature. The latter method did not in Quenya or Sindarin become a part of normal conjugation, but was used rather to produce new independent stems with conjugations of their own. Thus mammata- “to gobble up”, or “to go on eating, gorge oneself”. But the “repetitive” form, made with reduplication; and gemination of the second basic consonant was so frequent in Quenya as to be virtually part of the system of normal basic verbs: so tutulla- “to keep on coming (and going)”. In Telerin reduplication without gemination was the normal way of forming continuous presents: mamāta- “is eating” (PE22/130).
A very similar description appeared in Quendian & Common Eldarin Verbal Structure (EVS1) from the late 1940s (PE22/95). There are numerous examples of these frequentative Quenya verbs in Tolkien’s writing from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, but the exact methods of forming these verbs seems to vary:
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It was revised to:
Repetitives are not often made from this type of stem. If so they [are] made usually only from talt-stems (PE22/115).
It is probably safer to limit frequentatives to basic verbs and a-stem verbs.
-Neo-Quenya: I personally find the frequentatives of the form sisilla (with lengthened or strengthened final consonants) to be the most aesthetically pleasing, but these appear mainly in the Quenya Verbal System written in the late 1940s and published in 2015. Frequentatives of the form sisíla (with lengthened stem vowels) are probably more popular, since (a) they appear in the version of the Markirya written in the late 1960s which was (b) published in 1983 so that this variation has been known to the Quenya-speaking community for much longer.
+Neo-Quenya: I personally find the frequentatives of the form sisilla (with lengthened or strengthened final consonants) to be the most aesthetically pleasing, but these appear mainly in the Quenya Verbal System written in the late 1940s and published in 2015. Frequentatives of the form sisíla (with lengthened base vowels) are probably more popular, since (a) they appear in the version of the Markirya written in the late 1960s which was (b) published in 1983 so that this variation has been known to the Quenya-speaking community for much longer.
I think the two forms for frequentatives can coexist, derived from competing Common Eldarin formations along with other variations like mammata. Tolkien’s notes in EVS2 do encompass all these variations in Common Eldarin: “Reduplication often, accompanied by lengthening or fortification [of the vowel], or by dynamic lengthening of one of the base-consonants, was another feature” (PE22/129).
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The Quenya future tense refers to events occurring in the future: i atan matuva, matuvan “the man will eat, I will eat”. The English future tense uses a helping verb “will”, but the Quenya future tense has its own conjugation, with the suffix -uva.
Origins of the Future Tense: Tolkien discussed the origins of the future tense in a number of places. Unlike the other verb tenses, the Quenya future did not originate in Common Eldarin (CE), as described in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) from the early 1950s:
Future. All the Eldarin languages express, or in their older periods expressed, a simple future inflexionally, but the inflexions and patterns are different in each. It is thus probable that the development had not been completed at the time of the separation of the branches. In CE the future could still be expressed evidently by the aorist with defining adverbs (see above), and some of the habitual collocations were already hardening into fixed agglutinated groups on the way to becoming inflexional; while there were also probably some verbal expressions, like English “will go, am going to say” (PE22/131).
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The Quenya genitive is formed with the suffix -o and is roughly equivalent to the English preposition “of”. Tolkien talked about the circumstances in which the genitive would be used at some length in his Quendi and Eldar essay written in the 1960s, mostly comparing it to the possessive case (WJ/368-369):
This was the source of the most used “genitive” inflexion of Quenya. Properly it was used partitively, or to describe the source or origin, not as a “possessive”, or adjectivally to describe qualities; but naturally this “derivative genitive” (as English of) could be used in many circumstances that might have possessive or adjectival implications, though “possession” was indicated by the adjectival suffix -va, or (especially in general descriptions) by a “loose compound”. Thus “Oromë’s horn” was róma Oroméva (if it remained in his possession); Oromë róma would mean “an Oromë horn”, sc. one of Oromë’s horns (if he had more than one); but róma Oromëo meant “a horn coming from Oromë”, e.g. as a gift, in circumstances where the recipient, showing the gift with pride, might say “this is Oromë’s horn”. If he said “this was Oromë’s horn”, he would say Oroméva. Similarly lambe Eldaron would not be used for “the language of the Eldar” (unless conceivably in a case where the whole language was adopted by another people), which is expressed either by Elda-lambe or lambe Eldaiva.
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Genitives | Sg. | Du. | Part. Pl. | Pl. |
vocalic: cirya | ciryo | ciryato | ciryalion | ciryaron |
e-noun: lasse | lasseo | lasseto | lasselion | lassion |
-consonantal: atan | atano | atanuo | atanélion | atanion |
+consonantal: atan | atano | atanuo | atallion | atanion |
The consonantal dual form -uo is attested in a deleted honorific dual suffix -táruo (PE17/58).
Note that nouns with er-plurals (those ending in -ie and -le) would form their genitive plural with -eron, often with prosodic lengthening: tyaliéron “of the plays”. However, there are examples of e-nouns that form their genitive plural with -eron rather than the expected -ion for no clear reason: esseron (VT42/17), Ingweron (PM/340), Wenderon (VT44/18). As discussed under plural nouns, I would treat these aberrant er-plural forms as irregular, but given their frequency they may be a competing formation (either in-universe or in Tolkien’s conception of Quenya).
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The basic verbal noun in Quenya is the gerund, formed from the verb stem using the suffix -ie, roughly equivalent to English “-ing”. This English suffix is also used to form the active participle, but Quenya has a different suffix for that. Compare “eating is good” matie mára (ná) [gerund] vs. “the eating man” i matila nér [active participle]. The English suffix “-ing” is ambiguous between the gerund and active participle; the Quenya gerundial suffix -ie is ambiguous in a different way, since it resembles the suffix used to form the Quenya perfect tense. The Quenya gerund and perfect can be distinguished, though, by other features of the perfect inflection:
ı̯e as verbal ending “-ing” should only be added to aorist stem. Hence matie “eating” is distinct from [perfect] (a)mátie “have eaten” (PE17/13).
The gerundial suffix is derived from ancient -(i)yē, as described by Tolkien in several places:
@@ -110034,7 +110151,7 @@ mólome).
The next set of clear gerunds in the published corpus date from the 1940s: kariemma “our doing” (PE17/14) and the QVS examples given above. Hereafter, Tolkien seems to have stuck mainly with -ie gerunds, with occasional alternate suffixes as described in the section on Other Gerund Suffixes above.
Neo-Quenya: Our best source of information about how gerunds function is from the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) document written in 1948, as discussed above. This document predates certain shifts in Tolkien’s conception of the language: the restoration of pronominal subject suffixes (over prefixes), the change of the verb “to be” from ye- to ná-, and the introduction of the particular infinitive. As such, it takes some extrapolation to interpret how the rules described in QVS might apply to Quenya grammar as Tolkien imagined after the publication of The Lord of the Rings. These extrapolations are embedded in the main text above, where they also help explain the original rules as Tolkien imagined them in QVS.
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The half-strong verbs use many of the same inflections as weak verbs, but have strong past tenses formed by modifying the verb stem. Most verbs with half-strong conjugations are formative verbs, which are the result of adding the suffixes -t(ă) or -y(ă) to a root. They are most commonly used with roots that cannot be verbs by themselves, such as: orta- “rise” from the root √OR “up(wards)” (PE22/114, 164). They are also used with verbs whose roots end in y or w that would otherwise be very awkward to conjugate: caita- “to lie (down)” (PE22/157), [ᴹQ.] lauta- “to abound” (PE22/103). The formatives are frequently intransitive verbs, which sometimes leads to variant transitive/intransitive past tenses: ortane “raised” (transitive and weak) vs. oronte “rose” (intransitive and half-strong).
One comprehensive set of conjugations for formative verbs appears in Late Notes on Verb Structure from 1969 (PE22/164), but many of these appear in slightly different forms in notes from the mid-1960s (PE17/77). The inflections for ta-formatives and ya-formatives are also not quite the same as each other:
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This was originally formed “strong” with n-intrusion before the last consonant: as sirya: sirinye “flowed”; talta: talante. Where the stem was of √AT type this past could be made from ’ta-form: as orta: *rontē “rose”; ista: sinte “knew”. But few examples — only sinte “knew” is common — survive; the usual form is oronte “rose” (PE22/115).
Thus, typical half-strong past tenses were formed as sirya (< ✶sir-yă) → sirinye (< ✶sir-(i)-n-y-e), where the past tense inflection n-e was split before and after the formative suffix and an extra base vowel was inserted for pronounceability. For verbs made from invertible roots like ortă and istă, the past tense might instead be made from the inverted root, as noted above: ronte or sinte. Of these alternate forms, only sinte “knew” was widely used, so these variants can be treated as irregular.
Some half-strong verbs formed their past tenses (that is as strong pasts) by dropping the formative suffix entirely and inflecting the root as if it were a basic verb. This is most common with formatives produced from roots ending in Y or W: caita (< ✶kay-tă) → past caine (< ✶kay-ne); [ᴹQ.] lauta → past laune (PE17/72; PE22/103). This pattern is occasionally seen in other verb forms like menta → past mennē (PE17/93). These strong past tenses were probably favored, especially for Y and W roots, because the normal inflections could produce past tenses heavily obscured by various phonetic changes: ✶kay-tă → past ✶kayante > ceante (PE22/164), past ✶áwa-n-tē > oante (WJ/366).
-Perfect Tense: The perfects of formatives tend to replace the final a with the perfect suffix -ie but otherwise follow the pattern of basic verbs: adding a base-vowel augment and (if possible) lengthening the stem vowel: nahta → anahtie, sirya → isírie. Such base-vowel lengthening is not possible for ta-formatives, but in ya-formatives the suffixal y merged with the perfect suffix -ie. In effect, the perfect was made from the root (√SIR) and vowel lengthening was possible. In some cases ta-formatives also have strong perfects derived from the root: compare simple perfect (is)istie vs. strong perfect isísie, two variant perfects of ista- (PE22/164).
+Perfect Tense: The perfects of formatives tend to replace the final a with the perfect suffix -ie but otherwise follow the pattern of basic verbs: adding a base-vowel augment and (if possible) lengthening the base vowel: nahta → anahtie, sirya → isírie. Such base-vowel lengthening is not possible for ta-formatives, but in ya-formatives the suffixal y merged with the perfect suffix -ie. In effect, the perfect was made from the root (√SIR) and vowel lengthening was possible. In some cases ta-formatives also have strong perfects derived from the root: compare simple perfect (is)istie vs. strong perfect isísie, two variant perfects of ista- (PE22/164).
There are also examples of half-strong verbs whose perfects are formed directly from the past tense, similar to weak verbs: caine → acainie perfect of caita- (PE22/157) or sinte → isintie, which is yet another variant perfect for ista- (PE17/77). Both these examples have variants following more normal patterns, isistie and acaitie, so they may represent irregular forms or conceptual vacillations.
Present Tense: In Late Notes on Verb Structure from 1969, Tolkien gave some rather surprising present tenses for formative verbs, using suffixal -ia or -ya, such as present tense forms ortia, nahtia, síria (PE22/164) or ortya, caitya, istya (PE22/159). Present tense forms like these are seen nowhere else in the published corpus. Tolkien gave the origin of these forms as [or]tiyan > ortian, apparently from a primitive present suffix -iya. Elsewhere Tolkien said the primitive present tense suffix for derived verbs was ✶-ayā (PE17/77, 186) which became -ea through normal phonetic developments. Indeed, ā́ya appeared in the very same page as the ia-present forms (PE22/164 note #103). This page also included a hard-to-read statement saying something like “make Q. ea as present tense invade other forms”.
In earlier notes from the mid-1960s, the present tense for formatives used the suffix -ea (PE17/77), so it seems this ia-presents were a new concept introduced around 1969. It is not clear whether Tolkien intended these ia-forms to become the new present tense for formatives, whether he imagined they were archaic and replaced by ea-forms, or whether this was all a transient idea.
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Since we don’t know much about Early Qenya verb classes, it is hard to tell whether these variations represent distinct verb classes, conceptual vacillations or other irregularities. Tolkien began distinguishing the formatives (-tă, -yă) from the causatives (-tā, -yā) in the Quendian & Common Eldarin Verbal Structure written in the 1940s, though the terminology was not yet clearly established (PE22/98). A distinct class of half-strong formative verbs also appeared in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from this same period (PE22/113-115), already with past tenses like sirinye as described above.
In QVS, Tolkien lumped these formative “half-strong” verbs together with talat-stem verbs since their conjugations were nearly identical. In later documents the development of their conjugations were more distinct, especially in Late Notes on Verb Structure from 1969 (PE22/164). See the discussion in the entry on talat-stem verbs for more details on the conjugations of that verb class.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would ignore the ia-present forms from PE22/164 and assume they were either archaic or transient ideas. I would use the ea-present forms from PE17/77 instead, consistent with other derived verbs. I would, however, retain the half-strong past forms, as these are well established. Of course, one caveat is that it is not always possible to determine which verbs are half-strong and which are weak. One possible rule of thumb is that any ta-verb or ya-verb that is not a causative or based directly on a noun or adjective is probably a half-strong verb, especially if it is intransitive.
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neo-version="0.8.4"
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A neologism for “nest” coined by Tamas Ferencz, an elaboration of Q. aiwë “bird”.]]>
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- A term for the Eldar who remained behind in Beleriand (WJ/365). In Quenya, it became a technical term, rarely used in everyday speech (WJ/374). It was originally derived from “one lost or forsaken”, reformed to Hecel (pl. Heceldi) after the pattern of terms like (WJ/364).
+ A term for the Eldar who remained behind in Beleriand (WJ/365). In Quenya, it became a technical term, rarely used in everyday speech (WJ/374). It was originally derived from “one lost or forsaken”, reformed to Hecel (pl. Heceldi) after the pattern of terms like (WJ/364).
Conceptual Development: A similar term “The Forsaken” appeared in earlier writing (MR/169-170). Ecelli was in all cases replaced by other words: (MR/170) or Sindar (MR/175). Nevertheless, it was probably the precursor to Hecel.
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A verb in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s appearing as ᴱQ. hilkin “it freezes” based on the early root ᴱ√HḶKḶ, a variant of ᴱ√HELE (QL/39).
-Neo-Quenya: Since there is no sign of ᴱ√HḶKḶ in Tolkien’s later writings, I think it is best is adapt this verb as ᴺQ. hel- “freeze” based directly on the later root √KHEL of ice words. Since the root is ice-related, I’d limit the meaning of this verb to the freezing of water and similar substances. For freezing weather, I’d use Q. nicu-.
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+Neo-Quenya: Since there is no sign of ᴱ√HḶKḶ in Tolkien’s later writings, I think it is best is adapt this verb as ᴺQ. hel- “freeze” based directly on the later root √KHEL of ice words. Since the root is ice-related, I’d limit the meaning of this verb to the freezing of water and similar substances. For freezing weather, I’d use Q. nicu-.
]]>
[
@@ -112366,7 +112484,7 @@ mólome).
An adjective for “naked” in The Etymologies of the 1930s derived from primitive ᴹ✶skelnā under the root ᴹ√SKEL (Ety/SKEL). In the entry for ᴹ√SKAL¹ “screen, hide”, helda was glossed “stripped bare” and contrasted with ᴹQ. halda “veiled, hidden” (Ety/SKAL¹). This comparison is probably because Tolkien originally had ᴹQ. halla “naked” from the root ᴹ√SKAL, but this entry and its derivatives were deleted (EtyAC/SKEL).
-]Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use the helda “naked” in the sense of “*without clothes”, as opposed to parnë for “naturally bare or bald”. I would also use helda in the sense “*denuded”, in references to regions with plant growth removed.
+Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use the word helda “naked” in the sense of “*without clothes”, as opposed to parnë for “naturally bare or bald”. I would also use helda in the sense “*denuded”, in references to regions with plant growth removed.
Conceptual Development: There are a couple earlier “naked” words beginning with h- in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s: ᴱQ. hulin and ᴱQ. hulqa “naked” under the early root ᴱ√HULU “strip” (QL/41). Given the gloss “stripped bare” for helda in the 1930s, these 1910s words might be its precursors.
]]>
[
@@ -112497,7 +112615,7 @@ mólome).
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-
[
@@ -114585,7 +114703,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
]
[
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@@ -114610,6 +114728,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
]
+
[
@@ -114622,7 +114741,8 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
+ page-id="4127732747"
+ mark="!">
A neologism for “entrails, bowels” based on the early primitive word ᴱ✶ʒirdǝ from Early Noldorin Word Lists of the 1920s (PE13/144, 161).]]>
@@ -115197,6 +115317,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
+ hlara- since the root SLAS is substantival]]>
][
@@ -115434,7 +115555,9 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
]
-
+
[
@@ -115504,14 +115627,14 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
]
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+
- A Quenya cognate of S. hlô appearing in The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, rejected when Tolkien revised the primitive form {✶sloga >>} ✶loga and the Sindarin form {lhô >>} lô (VT42/9-10). I personally prefer the earlier form S. lhô which Tolkien used prior to 1968, and as such I think ᴺQ. hloa “flood, fenland” is salvagable for purposes of Neo-Eldarin, as a derivative of an s-prefixed variant of √LOG. See the entry on S. (h)lô for further discussion.]]>
-
+ A Quenya cognate of S. lhô appearing in The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, rejected when Tolkien revised the primitive form {✶sloga >>} ✶loga and the Sindarin form {lhô >>} lô (VT42/9-10). I personally prefer the earlier form S. lhô which Tolkien used prior to 1968, and as such I think ᴺQ. hlöa “flood, fenland” is salvagable for purposes of Neo-Eldarin, as a derivative of an s-prefixed variant of √LOG. See the entry on S. l(h)ô for further discussion.]]>
+
[
@@ -115789,7 +115912,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
A neologism for “to swallow” coined by Helge Fauskanger for his Neo-Quenya New Testament (NQNT), derived from the root ᴹ√SLUK of the same meaning.]]>
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+
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@@ -115896,11 +116019,11 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
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speech="n">
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@@ -117554,8 +117677,8 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
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@@ -117599,36 +117722,36 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
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- A neologism for “cripple” coined by Helge Fauskanger in his Neo-Quenya New Testament (NQNT), a combination of Q. hroa “body” and Q. loica “failing”.]]>
-
+ A neologism for “cripple” coined by Helge Fauskanger in his Neo-Quenya New Testament (NQNT), a combination of Q. hröa “body” and Q. loica “failing”.]]>
+
-
- hroa “body” and some derivative of √MBAR “dwell”, perhaps meaning “*Body-dwelling”.]]>
-
+ hröa “body” and some derivative of √MBAR “dwell”, perhaps meaning “*Body-dwelling”.]]>
+
-
- A term for “the lore of the body and arts of healing” appearing in notes from 1965, first written hröanissë (NM/322). It is a combination of hroa “body” and nolmë “lore”.]]>
-
+ A term for “the lore of the body and arts of healing” appearing in notes from 1965, first written hröanissë (NM/322). It is a combination of hröa “body” and nolmë “lore”.]]>
+
@@ -117636,16 +117759,16 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
-
- A neologism coined by Paul Strack in 2022 specifically for Eldamo as a replacement for ᴱQ. sarkuva, it is simply an adjectival form of Q. hroa “body”.]]>
-
+ A neologism coined by Paul Strack in 2022 specifically for Eldamo as a replacement for ᴱQ. sarkuva, it is simply an adjectival form of Q. hröa “body”.]]>
+
A word in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s glossed “corpor(e)al, bodily”, an adjectival form of ᴱQ. sarko “living flesh, body” (QL/86).]]>
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gloss="loud ringing noise">
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+
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@@ -119721,8 +119866,12 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
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+ [
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@@ -119870,6 +120027,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
+
@@ -119877,6 +120035,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
+
@@ -122577,7 +122736,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
-
+
An imperative (command or request) in Quenya is typically formed using the imperative particle á, which generally precedes the aorist form of the verb: á tule “do come” (PE22/140), a laita te “praise them” (LotR/953), á na márie “be well”, the sentence formulation of namárië “farewell” (PE17/162). The imperative particle ā is of ancient origin, and it is the basis for the imperative in Sindarin as well. As Tolkien described it in the Quendi and Eldar essay written around 1960:
ā the imperative particle, being originally independent and variable in place, survived in S as ō > o (WJ/365).
Tolkien discussed the use of the imperative particle in some detail in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) written in the early 1950s, where he said:
@@ -122585,7 +122744,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
Eldarin had no special imperative verbal forms. But it had some special imperative arrangements of word order. Command, or request, could of course be expressed by any aorist, present, or future verbal form with appropriate tones. But where the second person was concerned the real curt imperative of command was expressed by the aorist form without any pronominal affix at all: mati “eat!” queti “say!” orja “rise, get up, up!” In conjunction with this the particle ā (common in all Eldarin as a brief call to attention) could be used.
In Q. when this was added with suppression of aorist-present vowel the expression was very imperious or urgent: tulā́ “come at once!” oryā́ “get up”. Preceding the verb it was less imperious. Thus there was a gradation: á tule! “do come!”, tule! “come” tulā́ “come at once”.
-In Quenya Verbal System (QVS) written in the late 1940s Tolkien also said “Politer requests were often put as future questions” (PE22/105); this technique of using questions for oblique requests is common in many languages, including English. There is also an expression mecin meaning “please” that can be added to requests, as in á þak’ i fende, mekin “close the door, please” (PE22/166). Thus ranging least to most polite:
+In Quenya Verbal System (QVS) written in the late 1940s Tolkien also said “Politer requests were often put as future questions” (PE22/106); this technique of using questions for oblique requests is common in many languages, including English. There is also an expression mecin meaning “please” that can be added to requests, as in á þak’ i fende, mekin “close the door, please” (PE22/166). Thus ranging least to most polite:
- Suffixed á: matá “eat!”
- Simple aorist: mate “eat”
@@ -122654,7 +122813,7 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
-
+
@@ -122674,11 +122833,11 @@ offspring” (GL/49).
-
Both English and Quenya make use of “impersonal” verbs, which are verbs with no determinate subject. An obvious example in English is “it rains”. The verb “rains” describes the entire action, and there is not really any entity performing the act of “raining”. English addresses such situations by using “it” as an empty subject, because English cannot have a sentence without a subject. Quenya handles impersonal verbs somewhat differently, by omitting the subject entirely. Thus “it rains” in Quenya is simple the impersonal verb ule. This impersonal verb construction was described in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) written in the early 1950s:
Where no subject was expressed or where the action was strictly impersonal, as in: “(it) rains, (it) seems”, the bare stem of the verb or tense was used without inflexion (PE22/128).
-Quenya uses such impersonal verb constructions much more frequently than in English, including many situation where English would have a determinate subject. For example, Quenya has an impersonal verb ek- which means “there is a chance, opportunity or permission”, and it is used in situations where English might use the modal verbs “can” or “may”. Where in English you would say “I can do it”, in Quenya you would say eke nin kare sa, more literally “there is an opportunity for me to do that” (VT49/20). Alternately, in Quenya “I may do that tomorrow” is ekuva nin kare sa noa, literally “there will be a chance for me to do that tomorrow”. Other impersonal constructions include:
+Quenya uses such impersonal verb constructions much more frequently than in English, including many situation where English would have a determinate subject. For example, Quenya has an impersonal verb ek- which means “there is a chance, opportunity or permission”, and it is used in situations where English might use the modal verbs “can” or “may”. Where in English you would say “I can do it”, in Quenya you would say eke nin kare sa, more literally “there is an opportunity for me to do that” (VT49/20). Alternately, in Quenya “I may do that tomorrow” is ekuva nin kare sa noa, literally “there will be a chance for me to do that tomorrow”. Other impersonal constructions include:
- mára ná “[it] is good” (PE17/93).
- mára tyen [ná] “[it] is good to you = you like it” (PE22/166).
@@ -122741,7 +122900,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
If the agent needs to be expressed, it is put in the instrumental in conjunction with passive participles: i massa matina i Eldanen (ná) “the bread is eaten by the Elf”. For impersonal verbs, the dative is used for the purported subject, but that seems to only be the case for intrinsically impersonal verbs which have no determinant subject: eke nin kare sa “there is an opportunity for me to do that” (VT49/20). For “generic impersonal passive voice”, it is likely no purported subject is possible (or rather, if you want an explicit subject, you can only use active voice: Elda mate i massa “the Elf eats the bread”).
Also of note is the fact that the indefinite pronoun mo can be used to avoid specifying a determinant subject. This is probably most common for general or proverbial statements: mo mate massa qui mo pene apsa “one eats bread if one lacks meat”. Based on the examples in QVS and LVS, it seems mo is often added as the phrase increases in complexity to avoid confusion: alasaila ná lá kare tai mo nave mára “it is unwise not to do what one judges good” (PE22/154). Colloquially, the inclusive “we” can be used the same way (PE22/154), much as English sometimes uses “you”: “you eat bread if you don’t have meat”; in Q. such expressions would use -lve “we (inclusive)”: matilve massa qui penilve apsa.
It also seems that “plural impersonal” expressions are also possible (PE17/167), as in quetir Eldar vanime (nar) “they say Elves are beautiful”, but an indeterminate rather than specific “they”.
]]>
-
@@ -122964,7 +123123,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
-
+
The “inceptive” verbs were intransitive verbs formed from an adjective or verb with the sense of “begin to, grow, become”, as in: “begin to fall”, “grow pale”, “become light, lighten”. Inceptives can be broken up into two groups: verbal inceptives and adjectival inceptives. In the 1950s Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) Tolkien gave two different ways to form inceptives: verbal inceptives formed with suffixes lu, ru, nu (PE22/136) and adjectival inceptives formed in ancient times with the consonantal suffixal -s (PE22/135).
Verbal inceptives are formed from verb roots, and indicate the beginning of an action: “stand” vs. “begin to stand, stand up”; “sit” vs. “begin to sit, sit down”. In essence, they turn a normally continuous action into an instant action marking the beginning of that activity. The common verbal inceptive suffixes are lu, ru, nu, often in combination with the prefix et- “out”:
The suffixes lu, ru, nu, mainly used after bases ending in sonants, and especially after final j of KAL-bases, had always an inceptive force: as in thillu, thilnu “shine out, appear (of stars etc.)”; √KOJ: et-koiru/lu “come to life”; √KUJ: et-kuinu “awake, wake up”; √KAJ: kainu “lie down”; √TUJ: tuilu “open (of buds, flowers)”. Contrast: koitā́ “bring to life”, kuitā́ “waken, rouse”; and káit-ă “lie, be on the ground” (PE22/136).
@@ -122987,7 +123146,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
The other inceptives described in EVS2 were u-verbs and the suffixes lu, ru, nu, as described above (PE22/136). These were primarily (exclusively?) verbal inceptives and have no particular phonological difficulties. These are the best verbal inceptives available in the published corpus.
In the early 1950s Common Eldarin: Verb Structure Tolkien introduced the verbal and adjectival inceptives with suffixes lu, ru, nu vs -s (>> -rya) described above. Finally, Tolkien introduced yet another way to form adjectival inceptives in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 using -tă vs. causative -tā, also described above.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I currently prefer the 1950s system described in EVS2 with verbal inceptives lu, ru, nu and adjectival inceptives -rya (past tense -nse) because they produce more distinct inceptive forms: Q. tancarya- “*become firm”, past tense tancanse vs. causative Q. tancata- “make firm”. The ancient inceptives with -s are also the best explanation of the Noldorin/Sindarin intransitive past tenses with -s. If, however, you prefer to use Tolkien “latest” system, then the 1969 system whereby causatives and adjectival inceptives are distinguished only in the past tense (inceptive ninquinte “became white” vs causative ninquitáne “made white”) is your best option.
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-
+
@@ -123006,7 +123165,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
-
Quenya does not have an indefinite article, but it does have a set of indefinite pronouns: mo “some (indefinite) person” and ma “some (indefinite) thing”:
@@ -123022,7 +123181,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
These same 1940s documents had a generic personal definite pronoun ᴹQ. e. The pronoun e briefly reappeared in notes from the late 1960s as an indefinite personal pronoun, but was soon changed to mo (PE22/154 notes #57, 68). For the most part, in the 1950s and 60s Tolkien seem to use mo/ma for indefinite pronouns, as discussed above.
Neo-Quenya: The use of mo/ma as indefinite pronouns is not very controversial, and they are usually interpreted as “someone, something”. This begs the question of how to express the concept of “anyone, anything”. There is another later pronoun aiquen glossed “if anybody, whoever” (WJ/372) which is often used in Neo-Quenya writing for “anybody”. From these we can extrapolate neologisms like ᴺQ. aima “anything” (from ma “a thing, something”), as well as ᴺQ. ailume “anytime” and ᴺQ. ainome “anyplace, anywhere” following the pattern of silume, talume and sinome, tanome.
These introduce a problem for “sometime, someplace”, which can’t be easily generalized from mo/ma. The best options I’ve seen to date are ᴺQ. nalume “sometime” and ᴺQ. nanome “someplace” based on námo “somebody”, as suggested by Lokyt in a discussion on the Aglardh forums in late 2019. But this is all very deeply speculative, and may easily be overturned by future publications.
]]>
-
-
+
The simple infinitive in Quenya is just the uninflected aorist form of the verb: cen- → cene “to see”. Tolkien described the infinitive at length in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) composed in the early 1950s:
This bare tense-stem functioned not only as the stem to which inflexions, mainly pronominal affixes, could be added, but also as the “infinitive” or object of another verb. Cf. English “give” in relation to “I give or gives”, and in such formulas as “I can give”. But this infinitive, or undefined tense-stem, could only be used as an object; it could not be declined as a noun, nor function as a subject. This situation, though arrived at by quite a different historical process, is again like English, “I can give (or give it)”, but “giving (or to give) is a mistake”; I have no “desire to give” or “thought of giving”.
@@ -123542,7 +123701,7 @@ dread, I fear (of future things)” (QL/102).
[
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@@ -124819,7 +124978,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
The last example provides some insight into the medial development of sl, sr. A related quote from the late 1960s appearing in the same document is:
hl, hr, hw, hy. In compounds with clearly perceived prefixes (or between clearly analyzed and separate other elements) these remain (as voiceless l, r, w, y) as in ohlon (not ollon) “diphthong” from ŏ + hlōn “sound” (< *slōn) (VT48/29).
-Thus it seems that the hl, hr could be preserved (or restored) in Tarquesta [TQ] compounds or grammatical formations, as opposed to the usual medial development of sl, sr > zl, zr > ll, rr. As pointed out by Patrick Wynne (VT48/34 note #29) there are examples of medial sr > rr in ancient compounds such as ✶ > Q. “Incarnates” (MR/350). Wynne likewise suggested that the compounds ᴹQ. and containing ᴹQ. (PM/135) may be a counterexample of the restoration of medial hr in TQ compounds, since as names of months they are unlikely to be ancient. However, there are other examples from the Quenya Verbal System from 1948 (published after Wynne did his analysis) that clearly show the restoration of medial hl in verbal perfects:
+Thus it seems that the hl, hr could be preserved (or restored) in Tarquesta [TQ] compounds or grammatical formations, as opposed to the usual medial development of sl, sr > zl, zr > ll, rr. As pointed out by Patrick Wynne (VT48/34 note #29) there are examples of medial sr > rr in ancient compounds such as ✶ > Q. “Incarnates” (MR/350). Wynne likewise suggested that the compounds ᴹQ. and containing ᴹQ. (PM/135) may be a counterexample of the restoration of medial hr in TQ compounds, since as names of months they are unlikely to be ancient. However, there are other examples from the Quenya Verbal System from 1948 (published after Wynne did his analysis) that clearly show the restoration of medial hl in verbal perfects:
- ahlázie perfect of ᴹQ. hlasta- (PE22/103).
- ihlíkie perfect of ᴹQ. , replacing archaic †illīk[ie] (PE22/113).
@@ -124953,7 +125112,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
-
+
The Quenya instrumental is formed with the suffix -nen and is roughly equivalent to English “with, by (means of)”. It indicates the instrument or means by which an action occurred, and hence cannot be used for “with” in the English sense of “accompanying” or “by” in the sense of “beside”:
- ai! laurie lantar lassi súrinen “ah! like gold fall the leaves in (by agency of) the wind” (LotR/377; PE17/62).
@@ -124987,7 +125146,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).Instrumentals | Sg. | Du. | Part. Pl. | Pl. |
vocalic: cirya | ciryanen | ciryanten | ciryalínen | ciryainen |
e-noun: lasse | lassenen | lassenten | lasselínen | lassínen |
-consonantal: atar | ataranen | *atarúnen | *atarelínen | *atarínen |
+consonantal: atar | ataranen | *atarúnen | *atallinen | *atarínen |
Monosyllabic u-duals would not show prosodic lengthening, for example: nat “thing”, natunen “by means of two things”. Consonantal nouns ending in -n probably assimilated to the instrumental: atan “man”, atannen “by means of a man”
Forms marked with a * are unattested and hypothetical. Consonantal forms are especially speculative, including the singular inflection. See the Neo-Quenya section below for more discussion.
@@ -125111,7 +125270,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
-
+
@@ -125203,7 +125362,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
-
+
Questions (interrogatives) in Quenya can be indicated by intonation alone, just like in English: túlalye? “you are coming?” However, more often they are marked with the interrogative particle ma. This particle was derived from the ancient root √MA, which was mentioned in several places (PE17/68, 162; VT47/19). Tolkien discussed its use in some detail in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969:
Questions appear in Q. to have had in colloquial speech the same form as statements, distinguished in tone only, not by word order. But all questions could be preceded (and usually were in writing) by the particle ma (a always short) ... Where ma was used it had to be placed immediately before the subject or a verb with a pronominal subject inflexion, and this group normally came first (PE22/160-161).
Thus ma túlalye “are you coming?” or ma i nér túla “is the man coming?” This default order can be modified for purposes of emphasis:
@@ -125259,13 +125418,13 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).The origin of mana “what” isn’t clear, but I suspect it is a nominalized adjective: ma + -na, much like sina “this” and tana “that”, the latter being usable as both an adjective (VT49/11) and pronoun (Ety/TA). Perhaps this is the case with mana as well, and both of the following are valid: mana meril “what do you want?” mana quile mára lyen (ná) “what/which colour do you like?” (lit. “is good to you?”). However, it is possible manima “of what sort” can also function as general interrogative adjectival “which, what”.]]>
-
+
-
Interrogatives in Quenya were derived from the root √MA (PE17/68, 161-162; PM/357). This root also seems to be the basis for the neuter indefinite pronoun ma “something” (PE22/154). There are various interrogative forms derived from this root, many of which are simply the root with various Quenya noun case suffixes added:
@@ -125286,7 +125445,7 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).ᴺQ. mava “whose” = ma + possessive -va.
- ᴺQ. manan “why” = mana “what” + dative -n.
]]>
-
dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
-
-
[
@@ -125681,11 +125838,6 @@ nasals, as in dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
]
-
-
-
dorno > norno (OP2, early 1950s, PE19/80).
-
+
Quenya verbs show a number of irregularities and unexpected behaviors, especially in the past and present tenses. However, there are some verbs that, because of phonological peculiarities or their foundational natures, are more irregular than usual. Tolkien mentioned this in the Quenya Verbal System written in 1948:
There are a number of verbal elements in Quenya (as in Eldarin generally) that are either of ancient type, of √TĀ-bases, not of the normal tal-form, or that have by loss of older consonants in Eldarin (e.g. ʒ, ñ) or in prehistoric Quenya (e.g. g), have assumed this simpler form. They are often important like the verb “to be”, or as auxiliaries, and modal verbs; but they have several irregularities, and are usually defective in one or more of the parts found in a full verb (PE22/122).
Verbs that are irregular because of their phonetic character are discussed in the entries for individual verbs, such as the rather abnormal verb auta- “to depart, leave, pass away”. The conjugations of more foundational verbs are discussed in this entry, in particular those verbs for “to be” and “to not be”. For more information on how these verbs (or quasi-verbs) are used in a sentence, see the entries on the copula and the negative.
@@ -126193,7 +126345,7 @@ Back to ú
ū should be negative particle (VT44/4).
The full essay where this last note appears remains unpublished.
Neo-Quenya: The use of the verbs ná- and ea- is mostly uncontroversial, and is discussed in more detail in the entry on the copula. Negation in Neo-Quenya can be an extremely heated topic, though, with strong proponents on both sides. This issue is discussed in more detail in the entry on the negative.
]]>
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@@ -126710,6 +126862,10 @@ Back to ú
+
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@@ -127479,6 +127635,31 @@ Back to ú
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