From 976d16494243043c9b3251120344d30a0ba532cb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: pfstrack
This section includes words drawn from multiple periods throughout Tolkien’s life, as well as later inventions by fans (neologisms); Tolkien actually used different names for earlier versions of the Sindarin language: Noldorin (1920-1950) and Gnomish (1910-1920). Since this list of words does not precisely Tolkien’s conception of these languages at any particular time, this section uses the “Neo-Sindarin” designation, since it is in effect “Post Tolkien”. For information about Sindarin and its precursor languages as Tolkien conceived them at various periods of his life, see:
+This section includes words drawn from multiple periods throughout Tolkien’s life, as well as later inventions by fans (neologisms); Tolkien actually used different names for earlier versions of the Sindarin language: Noldorin (1920-1950) and Gnomish (1910-1920). Since this list of words does not precisely match Tolkien’s conception of these languages at any particular time, this section uses the “Neo-Sindarin” designation, since it is in effect “Post Tolkien”. For information about Sindarin and its precursor languages as Tolkien conceived them at various periods of his life, see:
]]>In Tolkien’s writing, he distinguished two phases of development for Primitive Elvish: Primitive Quenderin and Common Eldarin. Primitive Quenderin (also called Common Quenderin) was the language as it was spoken at Cuiviénen, while Common Eldarin was the form of the language spoken by the Eldar as they marched to Aman, distinct from the languages of the Avari (PE18/72). Since very little is known of the Avari languages, it can be difficult to determine which linguistic features developed in the Common Eldarin phase and which belong to Primitive Quenderin. For simplicity, this lexicon groups both phases of development under “Primitive Elvish”.
]]>I have taken a first pass at working out the basic phonetic rules for the development from Primitive Elvish through Old Noldorin to Noldorin, but I not yet compared it to the phonology of later Sindarin or earlier Gnomish, nor to its real-world counterpart Welsh. It is also known that there is a discussion of Noldorin phonology in an unpublished Noldorin grammar (PE13/120 note #1), so any analysis here must be considered preliminary until that document becomes available.
]]>Needs review.
]]>Its appendix (SA) of linguistic elements is cited separately.
]]>References are by alphabetical entry.
]]>Númenor was destroyed when Ar- tried to invade Valinor, and the Classical Adûnaic language perished with it. Though Adûnaic was still spoken in the surviving Númenórean colonies, many of them were dominated by the Faithful who had little incentive to preserve the language. This Exilic Adûnaic blended with the native languages of Northeastern Middle-earth, becoming Westron. It may have survived longer in the Black Númenórean colonies allied with Sauron, most notably Umbar, but even there it was probably blended with or replaced by the native languages of the Haradrim. It was a dead language by the time of the War of the Ring.
-Adûnaic (or Adunaic) is an Anglicanized form of the languages name. The actual term is .
]]>Adûnaic (or Adunaic) is an Anglicanized form of the language’s name. The actual term is .
]]>The only published root with form similar to √KAWA prior to 1950 is ᴱ√KAẆA “stoop” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/45), also appearing as kava- or cava- in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon (GL/25, 27). The Ẇ is Tolkien’s usual representation of derivatives of ancient labialized velar spirants [ɣʷ] or [xʷ] (PE12/15-16). The derivatives of this root included words like ᴱQ. kauko/G. caug “humpback” and ᴱQ. kawa-/G. cam(m)a- “bow”, so it seems to have no connection to later √KAW other than its similarity in form.
]]>The root ᴹ√KEL reappeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s where it seems to have an added connotation of “flow downwards”, given its gloss “go, run (especially of water), flow away downhill” (Ety/KEL). This more specific meaning to the root appeared in later writings, with glosses such as 1930s “flow, flow away, run (of rivers)” (PE18/58), 1940s “run away especially downwards or at end” (PE22/114), 1950s “go away, flow away or flow down (of water)” (PE18/103), and 1960s “flow (down)” (PE17/157). The u-extension ✶kelu with the (continuative?) sense “flow, well up” remained common throughout all these periods as well (PE18/86; PE22/98, 133, 135).
+The root ᴹ√KEL reappeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s where it seems to have an added connotation of “flow downwards”, given its gloss “go, run (especially of water), flow away downhill” (Ety/KEL). This more specific meaning to the root continued to appear in later writings, with glosses such as 1930s “flow, flow away, run (of rivers)” (PE18/58), 1940s “run away especially downwards or at end” (PE22/114), 1950s “go away, flow away or flow down (of water)” (PE18/103), and 1960s “flow (down)” (PE17/157). The u-extension ✶kelu with the (continuative?) sense “flow, well up” remained common throughout all these periods as well (PE18/86; PE22/98, 133, 135).
Starting with The Etymologies of the 1930s, Tolkien compared this root with etymological variants √KWEL “fade (away), die away, grow faint” and √KYEL “come to an end, cease, run out” (Ety/KWEL, KYEL; PE18/58, 103), and indeed Tolkien used it as one of his basic examples of such etymological variations:
There existed in Quenderin 1. √KEL “flow, flow away, run (of rivers)”. Of this simple base, since the initial variation is possible, while the sundóma is the same 2. √KJEL “cease, come to an end”, and 3. √KWEL “fade, die away, grow faint” may be regarded as differentiated variants (second version of Tengwesta Qenderinwa, TQ2, circa 1950, PE18/103).
A similar note appeared in the first version of Tengwesta Qenderinwa (TQ1) from the 1930s (PE18/58). Likewise ✶kelu was one of his main examples of variant vocalic extensions:
@@ -31724,6 +31728,9 @@ After removing the pronominal prefix ya- and the pluThe root reappeared again in revisions made to the Outline of Phonology (OP2) around 1959 with a new gloss “cover up, hide away, lay in store”, along with an extended root √KHAWAD “store, hoard” that continued to influence S. haudh “(funeral) mound” (PE19/91). The root √KHAW² >> √KHAWA also appeared in a page of roots having to do with “large and small” of unclear date (but probably late 1950s or early 1960s), with the derivatives Q. hoa “big, large” and Q. haura “huge” (PE17/115).
-Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I think the 1930s meaning “rest, lie at ease” is probably most useful, and I would limit the meaning “lay in store” to its extended root √KHAWAD. As for the meaning “big”, I would limit it to (Quenya-only) Q. hoa.
]]>The root reappeared again in revisions made to the Outline of Phonology (OP2) around 1959 with a new gloss “cover up, hide away, lay in store”, along with an extended root √KHAWAD “store, hoard” that continued to influence S. haudh “(funeral) mound” (PE19/91). The root √KHAW² >> √KHAWA also appeared in a page of roots having to do with “large and small” of unclear date (but probably late 1950s or early 1960s), with the derivatives Q. höa “big, large” and Q. haura “huge” (PE17/115).
+Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I think the 1930s meaning “rest, lie at ease” is probably most useful, and I would limit the meaning “lay in store” to its extended root √KHAWAD. As for the meaning “big”, I would limit it to (Quenya-only) Q. höa.
]]>The root √KOL appeared regularly in Tolkien’s writing in the 1950s and 60s with glosses like “bear, carry” and derivatives of similar meaning (PE17/145, 158; PE22/152, 155; VT39/10). This new meaning of the root was anchored in the words Q. colindo “bear” as in Q. Cormacolindor “Ring-bearers” (LotR/953), as well as S. coll “cloak” in S. Thingol “Grey-cloak” (PE17/72). In notes from 1969, Tolkien clarified that the root referred “to the ability to support weight or a burden, physical or mental, not necessarily to transporting it” (PE22/155).
]]>The root √KOL appeared regularly in Tolkien’s writing in the 1950s and 60s with glosses like “bear, carry” and derivatives of similar meaning (PE17/145, 158; PE22/152, 155; VT39/10). This new meaning of the root was anchored in the words Q. colindo “bearer” as in Q. Cormacolindor “Ring-bearers” (LotR/953), as well as S. coll “cloak” in S. Thingol “Grey-cloak” (PE17/72). In notes from 1969, Tolkien clarified that the root referred “to the ability to support weight or a burden, physical or mental, not necessarily to transporting it” (PE22/155).
]]> @@ -33731,7 +33740,7 @@ S. haðw (PE22/148). There are no signs of √KThe probably-related root ᴹ√KUB “bow” appeared in the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s (PE22/102); ᴹQ. nukumna “humbled (?under-bowed)” from this period may also be related (SD/246). In notes from the late 1950s or early 1960s Tolkien gave ✶kūma, Q. cúma and S. cû(f) next to Q. luva “bow, bight (not for shooting)” < √LUB “bend”, so presumably cúma/cû was “bow (for shooting)”. Finally Q. cúna “bent, curved” appeared in notes associated with the version of the Q. Markirya poem from the late 1960s, along with a verb form cúna- “to bend” (MC/222-223).
+The probably-related root ᴹ√KUB “bow” appeared in the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s (PE22/102); ᴹQ. nukumna “humbled (?under-bowed)” from this period may also be related (SD/246). In notes from the late 1950s or early 1960s Tolkien gave ✶kūma, Q. cúma and S. cû(f) next to Q. lúva “bow, bight (not for shooting)” < √LUB “bend”, so presumably cúma/cû was “bow (for shooting)” (PE17/122). Finally Q. cúna “bent, curved” appeared in notes associated with the version of the Q. Markirya poem from the late 1960s, along with a verb form cúna- “to bend” (MC/222-223).
These variations make it difficult to determine what Tolkien intended the root to mean, but for purposes of Neo-Eldarin I would assume a base root of √KU(Ʒ) or √KU(H) with perhaps a verbal variant √KUB based on its use in the 1940s, and with the primitive sense “bow, bend”.
]]>The root was appeared in both versions of the Tengwesta Qenderinwa from the 1930s (TQ1) and circa 1950 (TQ2) with the glosses “die” (TQ1: PE18/42, 58, 65; TQ2: PE18/103) and “pain” (TQ2: PE18/91). In TQ2 Tolkien connected it to similar roots √GWAL “suffer torment” and √KWEL “fade, die away, grow faint” (PE18/103). Somewhat interestedly, Tolkien gave almost no Sindarin or Noldorin derivatives of this root, indicating it probably fell out of use, most likely crowded out by derivatives of √PAL.
]]>The root appeared in both versions of the Tengwesta Qenderinwa from the 1930s (TQ1) and circa 1950 (TQ2) with the glosses “die” (TQ1: PE18/42, 58, 65; TQ2: PE18/103) and “pain” (TQ2: PE18/91). In TQ2 Tolkien connected it to similar roots √GWAL “suffer torment” and √KWEL “fade, die away, grow faint” (PE18/103). Somewhat interestingly, Tolkien gave almost no Sindarin or Noldorin derivatives of this root, indicating it probably fell out of use, most likely crowded out by derivatives of √PAL.
]]> @@ -34019,7 +34029,7 @@ S. haðw (PE22/148). There are no signs of √KThe earliest precursor to this root was ᴱ√KERE “turn” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, though this root’s derivatives mostly had to with earthenware and pottery (QL/46). In the Early Quenya Grammar of the 1920s Tolkien introduced several variants of this root: ku̯ere, ki̯ere and elaboration ᴱ√kereke “turn round and round, send to and fro”, the latter said to the basis of words having to do with “weave” in a syncopated form √kreke (PE14/65). In this document, none of these variants had any derivatives, but it seems the first of these ku̯ere survived in Tolkien’s later conception of the languages.
+The earliest precursor to this root was ᴱ√KERE “turn” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, though this root’s derivatives mostly had to with earthenware and pottery (QL/46). In the Early Quenya Grammar of the 1920s Tolkien introduced several variants of this root: ku̯ere, ki̯ere and elaboration ᴱ√kereke “turn round and round, send to and fro”, the latter said to be the basis of words having to do with “weave” in a syncopated form √kreke (PE14/65). In this document, none of these variants had any derivatives, but it seems the first of these ku̯ere survived in Tolkien’s later conception of the languages.
Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I would mostly use √KWER for “revolve, *turn”, and avoid the variant √KWEL which (a) has no derivatives and (b) conflicts with √KWEL “fade”. However, √KWEL is useful for preserving Noldorin words having to do with rotation from the earlier sense of the root ᴹ√PEL “revolve on fixed point” from the 1930s, so I would keep it as Sindarin-only variant to allow the retention of words like N. pelthaes “pivot”; this may also have been Tolkien’s motive for having such a variant of √KWER “revolve”.
]]>Given the above, it is possible that Tolkien abandoned ᴹ√KWIG. However, I think it is useful to retain for purposes of Neo-Eldarin as the basis for words having to do with “shoot”, especially since there are still some later derivatives of √KU(Ʒ) that have nothing to do with “shooting”, such as Q. cúna “bent, curved”.
]]>In The Etymologies of the 1930s it was glossed “warm” with derivatives ᴹQ. lauka and N. lhaug of the same meaning (Ety/LAW). In the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s it was glossed “abound” with a Quenya verb ᴹQ. lauta- of the same meaning (PE22/103).
-The root √LAW appeared in notes from the late 1950s serving as the basis for Q. loa “sun-year”, originally with the sense ✶lawā “growing, blooming”; it was also explicitly connected to its extended form √LAWAR with the sense “golden colour” (PE17/159). Its final appearance in currently published materials was in some Late Notes on Verbs from 1969, where it was given as √LAW “flourish (green), grow” with derivative Q. lauya- of the same meaning (PE22/156).
+The root √LAW appeared in notes from the late 1950s serving as the basis for Q. loa “sun-year”, originally with the sense ✶lawā “growing, blooming”; it was also explicitly connected to its extended form √LAWAR with the sense “golden colour” (PE17/159). Its final appearance in currently published materials was in some Late Notes on Verbs from 1969, where it was given as √LAW “flourish (green), grow” with derivative Q. lauya- of the same meaning (PE22/156).
Despite all these minor variations, the general meaning of the root was fairly stable, having to do mainly to do with life and flourishing (especially of plants), and also connected to warmth and sunlight, probably by association with its extended form √(G)LAWAR “golden colour or light”, which applied to sunshine among other things.
]]>Lô was derived from Common Eldarin base LOG “wet (and soft), soaked, swampy, etc.” The form *loga produced S. lô and T. loga; and also, from *logna, S. loen, T. logna “soaking wet, swamped”. But the stem in Quenya, owing to sound-changes which caused its derivatives to clash with other words, was little represented except in the intensive formation oloiya- “to inundate, flood”; oloire “a great flood” (VT42/10).
I prefer this last explanation, as it explains a wider variety of words. As for S. Lhûn, in notes from 1968 Tolkien explained it as a loan word from Khuzdul (VT48/24).
]]>In The Etymologies of the 1930s, however, there was the root ᴹ√PHAU̯ “gape” with derivatives ᴹQ. fauka/N. faug “thirsty” (Ety/PHAU; EtyAC/PHAU). The Noldorin derivative was used in the names N. Anfauglin “Jaws of Thirst” (SM/115) and N. Fauglith “Thirsty Sand; Gasping Dust” (LR/132) from contemporaneous Silmarillion drafts. Sindarin variants of these names S. Anfauglir “Jaws of Thirst” (S/180) and S. Anfauglith “Gasping Dust” (S/150) continued to appear in later versions of The Silmarillion.
-In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 Tolkien gave a new gloss for the root √PHAW as “emit (foul breath etc.)” serving as the basis for Q. foalóke, unglossed but perhaps “*breath-dragon” (PE17/181). The root √PHAW reappeared again in 1964 notes on Dalath Dirnen (DD) as the basis for Q. foa and S. faw, all unglossed (PE17/181). Finally ✶phā appeared in some notes from 1968 as an example of a primitive monosyllablic noun, with glosses “puff, (?blow)” or “breath, puff of breath” and probably-related forms fawa and foa (VT47/34-35). All these hints at a possible restoration of the sense of early ᴱ√FAGA from the 1910s: “emit (breath), puff, blow”.
+In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 Tolkien gave a new gloss for the root √PHAW as “emit (foul breath etc.)” serving as the basis for Q. foalóke, unglossed but perhaps “*breath-dragon” (PE17/181). The root √PHAW reappeared again in 1964 notes on Dalath Dirnen (DD) as the basis for Q. foa and S. faw, all unglossed (PE17/181). Finally ✶phā appeared in some notes from 1968 as an example of a primitive monosyllablic noun, with glosses “puff, (?blow)” or “breath, puff of breath” and probably-related forms fawa and foa (VT47/34-35). All these hints at a possible restoration of the sense of early ᴱ√FAGA from the 1910s: “emit (breath), puff, blow”.
Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I think it is best to assume √PHAW had its 1950s-60s meaning “emit (breath), puff, blow”, but that ᴹQ. fauka and N. faug “thirsty” were derived from another root *√PHAWAK or *√PHAUKA, either an extension or unrelated.
]]>Regarding S. grond: in The Etymologies of the 1930s this word was derived instead from the unglossed root ᴹ√RUD, which had derivatives ᴹQ. runda “rough piece of wood” and ON. runda > N. grond “club” (Ety/RUD); it also had strengthened variant ᴹ√G-RUD (EtyAC/G-RUD).
-Neo-Eldarin: Despite the change of Q. hrondo >> Q. hroa, I think √SRON might be retained in the more limited sense “matter” rather than “flesh”, along with related root √(G)RON “solid” from 1957. As for ᴹ√RUD, it might also be retained, with S. grond “solid; club” being a blending of ᴹ√RUD and √(G)RON.
]]>Neo-Eldarin: Despite the change of Q. hrondo >> Q. hröa, I think √SRON might be retained in the more limited sense “matter” rather than “flesh”, along with related root √(G)RON “solid” from 1957. As for ᴹ√RUD, it might also be retained, with S. grond “solid; club” being a blending of ᴹ√RUD and √(G)RON.
]]>Regardless, the connection to “flesh“ survived in later writings: primitive ✶srawā > Q. hroa “body” reappeared in notes discussing Q. órë from 1968 (VT41/14), the form ✶srā “flesh” > S. rhaw appeared as an example of a primitive monosyllabic noun in notes associated with Eldarin Hands, Fingers and Numerals from the late 1960s where Tolkien said it had probably lost a final -w in ancient times (VT47/12), and ✶srā “body” appeared in a list of monosyllabic nouns from 1968 again with signs of lost -w via the extended form ✶srawa (VT47/35).
+Regardless, the connection to “flesh“ survived in later writings: primitive ✶srawā > Q. hröa “body” reappeared in notes discussing Q. órë from 1968 (VT41/14), the form ✶srā “flesh” > S. rhaw appeared as an example of a primitive monosyllabic noun in notes associated with Eldarin Hands, Fingers and Numerals from the late 1960s where Tolkien said it had probably lost a final -w in ancient times (VT47/12), and ✶srā “body” appeared in a list of monosyllabic nouns from 1968 again with signs of lost -w via the extended form ✶srawa (VT47/35).
√SRAW “flesh, body” may itself be a reemergence of some similar early roots. In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s Tolkien had ᴱ√SṚKṚ “fat” with derivatives like ᴱQ. sarko “flesh, living flesh, body” and ᴱQ. sarqa “fleshy” (QL/86). The words ᴱQ. hara “flesh-meat” and ᴱQ. haranwa “fleshly, carnal” were given without a root (QL/39) and were probably connected to words like G. hara “flesh meat, meat” and G. harc “flesh (on a living body)” from contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon (GL/48). These might somehow be connected to ᴱ√SṚKṚ or could instead represent an otherwise unattested root like *ᴱ√HARA.
]]>There are, however, a fair number of Quenya words ending in ai, many of them monosyllables: Q. ai “alas” (LotR/377), hrai “awkward, difficult” (PE17/185), “well” (VT47/6). Other are compounds: Q. “maybe, be it that” = ná + i (RGEO/60), “consequently” = epe + ta + i (VT49/8), “if it be that” = cé + ná + i (VT49/19). Thus, it seems likely this sound change only occurred when the final -ai was unstressed, as it would be in final syllables of non-compounds and possibly the unstressed preposition ve (though this word had other derivations).
]]> +There are, however, a fair number of Quenya words ending in ai, many of them monosyllables: Q. ai “alas” (LotR/377), hrai “awkward, difficult” (PE17/185), “well” (VT47/6). Other are compounds: Q. “maybe, be it that” = ná + i (RGEO/60), “consequently” = epe + ta + i (VT49/8), “if it be that” = cé + ná + i (VT49/19). Thus, it seems likely this sound change only occurred when the final -ai was unstressed, as it would be in final syllables of non-compounds and possibly the unstressed preposition ve (though this word had other derivations).
]]>The first of these sound changes (sr > sř > ss) probably belonged to the Ancient Quenya period. Despite the supposed “survival” of this ancient sound change, I can find no examples of it in the phonetic history of individual words, where the intermediate voicing change of sr > zr > rr is more prevalent:
Thus, the ancient sound change of sr > ss was either frequently reformed, or Tolkien abandoned this phonetic development when forming actual words.
@@ -64764,7 +64784,7 @@ Thus magyā > maı̯ya, maia; ndagwē > ndau̯weForms marked with a * are unattested and hypothetical. In plural forms r may replace final n.
@@ -64887,7 +64907,7 @@ Thus magyā > maı̯ya, maia; ndagwē > ndau̯we ]]>the verbal adjs. or participles formed with {-la >> -ila >>} -(i)lā and capable of expressing tense (PE22/154 and note #52).
Adjectival. 1. The verbal participles (capable like the definite infin. ita of taking pronominal affixes) in {-la >>} -ila. Thus from √KAR were made: a) aor. indef[inite] karila, doing; perfect káriéla; future karuvaila. Only these 3 forms were made: the aor. was used as a present; the perfect functioned as “past” because this participle, the least frequently used, was only employed of a past immediately preceding the time of a subsequent and often consequential action or event (PE22/155 and note #59).@@ -65069,7 +65089,7 @@ passive tŭlĭna; pass[ive past] tulinwa (tulīna).
It is challenging to analyze these examples, because many of these “verbs” are attested nowhere else (those marked with a * or ?). Of those that are, tíne resembles the “aorist-like” active participle for basic verbs from Qenya Conjugations, except that it has a lengthened stem vowel; píke and yáme fit this same pattern. The forms falastane, pustane, histane are used in phrases parallel with tíne and may represent similar verb forms as suggested by Gilson, Welden and Hostetter (PE16/84, notes on line #11). Thus these -ne forms might be active participles for derived verbs. There is also ulmula “mumbling” whose suffix -la resembles the past active participle from Qenya Conjugations, but ulmu- is unlikely as a verb. Furthermore, -ne in this period is regularly used as a past-tense suffix, such as i súru laustaner “the wind lausted (made a windy noise)” in the Earendel (Poem) from the same “Secret Vice” essay (MC/216). Thus it is hard to tell exactly what Tolkien is doing here.
+It is challenging to analyze these examples, because many of these “verbs” are attested nowhere else (those marked with a * or ?). Of those that are, tíne resembles the “aorist-like” active participle for basic verbs from Qenya Conjugations, except that it has a lengthened base vowel; píke and yáme fit this same pattern. The forms falastane, pustane, histane are used in phrases parallel with tíne and may represent similar verb forms as suggested by Gilson, Welden and Hostetter (PE16/84, notes on line #11). Thus these -ne forms might be active participles for derived verbs. There is also ulmula “mumbling” whose suffix -la resembles the past active participle from Qenya Conjugations, but ulmu- is unlikely as a verb. Furthermore, -ne in this period is regularly used as a past-tense suffix, such as i súru laustaner “the wind lausted (made a windy noise)” in the Earendel (Poem) from the same “Secret Vice” essay (MC/216). Thus it is hard to tell exactly what Tolkien is doing here.
Tolkien returned to the topic of verbal participles in this Quenya Verbal System (QVS) written in the late 1940s, where he discussed active participles at some length. Tolkien first defined an “aorist participle active”:
The aorist participle active is just an ordinary substantival adjective with suffix {-iā >> -yā >>} -ā added to the aorist or aorist-present stem treated as a noun. So karia “making”; matia “eating”; tulia “coming”. A suffix {-ā >> -yā >> -lā >>} -yā is also used with similar significance. This participle is purely general and aorist in significance. If the action is thought of as continuous or parallel to the action of another verb the "present" or rather imperfect participle is used (PE22/107-108).
This paragraph originally contained similar forms for derived verbs, but these were deleted: istea “knowing”, ortea “rising”, keluya “issuing forth (of water)” (PE22/106 note #39). Tolkien returned to the suffix -yā later in QVS where he described it as the “general adjective” suffix and the derived-verb forms reappeared in this section:
@@ -65107,7 +65127,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaIt is possible that the -la active participles from Markirya are from a distinct paradigm than the -ila participles, but I think it might be legitimate to use these as “imperfect” or “present continuous” active participles, similar in sense to normal active participle but with the extra connotation of ongoing action contemporary with the main verb. I would form them by adding -la to the present form of basic verbs but to the verb stem of derived verbs, lengthening the stem vowel if possible:
+It is possible that the -la active participles from Markirya are from a distinct paradigm than the -ila participles, but I think it might be legitimate to use these as “imperfect” or “present continuous” active participles, similar in sense to normal active participle but with the extra connotation of ongoing action contemporary with the main verb. I would form them by adding -la to the present form of basic verbs but to the verb stem of derived verbs, lengthening the base vowel if possible:
Adjectives were not distinguished inflexionally from nouns in Eldarin. But it is probable that the arrangements in Eldarin syntax were the same as in Quenya. Adjectives normally preceded the qualified noun (cf. the position of the qualifying noun-stem in “loose composition”), and in attributive use were seldom separated from it by other words or elements. (A standing exception was made by numerals which usually immediately followed the noun.) They in fact made “loose compounds” with the qualified noun, and only the qualified noun was inflected. In Quenya attributive adjectives are inflected for number only, if they precede their nouns. If they follow, the situation is reversed (PE21/77).
The main exception to this rule is that adjectives might follow nouns in poetry, as an “abnormal order only permitted in verse” (PE21/77). One reason why adjective word order is important in Quenya is because the copula ná- “to be” is optional. Thus “[a] man is angry” is usually written atan raiqua (less frequently atan raiqua ná). Thus raiqua atan “[an] angry man” and atan raiqua “[a] man is angry” can be distinguished from each other only by their word order.
@@ -65175,7 +65195,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as karia show-glosses="true"/>The English suffix “-ly” is connected to the word “like”, as in “quickly” = “quick-like”. The adverbial suffix -ve might likewise be connected to the preposition ve “like”. The problem is that this same suffix regularly appears in abstract nouns like ilúve “allness” = ilu + ve or náve “being” = ná- + ve, the latter being a gerund since -ve is the typical gerundial suffix for verb stems ending in vowels (PE17/68).
Tolkien explored the connection between adverbs and abstract nouns in notes on the Namárië poem; these notes were probably written in or shortly before 1960. At issue were certain adverbs in the poem, notably laurie “like gold”, oiale “forever” and márie “well” in the salutation namárie “be well”.
@@ -65324,7 +65344,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaForms marked with a * are unattested and hypothetical.
Origins of the allative: As discussed in the entry on adverbial cases, the allative was originally just a suffix used to form adverbs from a noun, roughly equivalent to the English suffix “-wards”. Amanna originally meant “Aman-wards”, and this old function can be seen in some ancient names like Elenna “Starwards” (S/261).
@@ -70770,7 +70805,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaNote: Tolkien’s notes actually state that Aegnor choose his Sindarin name to differentiate himself from his brother (PM/347), which seems hardly necessary. It would make more sense if he were trying to distinguish himself from his cousin . Perhaps this was a slip on Tolkien’s part.
]]>@@ -75870,7 +75906,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaThus vá “I won’t (pulling head back)” and ui “it is not” (shaking head side to side). Perhaps ná “yes” involves nodding the head as is the case with English speakers, but Tolkien never said so one way or the other.
Conceptual Development: The idea of ᴱQ. ná “it is” as a word for “yes” dates back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/64). Many of the other ideas expressed above appear only in Tolkien’s later writing, however: vá “I won’t” wasn’t introduced until 1959 (PE17/143) and þá “I will” appears in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 (PE22/168). The different possibilities for “no” were tied to Tolkien’s vacillation between la-negation or u-negation as discussed in the entry on the negative. At one point when la-negation was out of favor, Tolkien even considered using (a)lá as the word for “yes”, along with an opposing word fó “no”, both of which most likely were transient ideas (linguistic notes from 1959, PE17/158, 181).
Neo-Quenya: One somewhat annoying feature of Tolkien’s system of question-answers in LVS is that they are all very similar to each other: they are all consonant + á (ná, þá, lá, vá). For this reason, I favor ui for “no” and ván for “I won’t”, to make them a bit more distinctive.
]]>
Aorist ... This “tense” denoted no tense or time. Its uses closely resembled those of the simple so-called present of English: “I eat, I do”. It was thus used of all statements true at all times (as in proverbs): “gold glitters”; “the sun rises in the morning”; habits, etc.: “I live in a small house”. Also as with E. it may be employed as an “historic present” for narrative; and for the future when defined by such words as “tomorrow” (PE22/95).
Contrast this with the Quenya “present” tense (strictly speaking, the present continuous or present imperfect tense) “the man is eating, I am eating” i atan máta, mátan, which can only refer to something going on in the present moment. Something that is happening now must necessarily be an ongoing action, which is why the present continuous form is used. Compare also English “something happens” (aorist, no specific time) versus “something is happening” (present continuous, necessarily happening now).
@@ -76436,7 +76472,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaThe aorist did appear in the Qenya Conjugations of the late 1920s or early 1930s (PE16/124-128). In these conjugations, it had already reach its final form for basic verbs: tule uninflected but tuli- when inflected. The aorist kept this form thereafter, making this verb tense quite stable in Tolkien’s mind. The only possible vacillations on the aorist I have found were in the aorists of talat-stem verbs, as mentioned above.
]]>One of these assimilations was an allative: menelda “to heaven” (VT43/13). Most were locative, however, and Tolkien considered a variety of possible forms:
@@ -80724,7 +80770,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as karia show-element-of="true"/>-ā verbs. Several verbs with an inherently continuative sense, such as gal- “grow”, spar “hunt, pursue”; skor “look out for, expect, wait for,” did not anciently form true aorists but were inflected from an infinitive base galā, sparā, skorā etc. Hence Q ola- “grow” [with side note: cf. ol-, oli- regular = “become”]; fara- “hunt”; hora “wait for”; mena “be making for, on way to” (PE22/113).
Tolkien described this class of verbs again in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure from the 1950s:
@@ -84062,14 +84108,14 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaThese notes also gave an alternate “strong” present form fára similar to the one from QVS described above, but immediately above these conjugations Tolkien wrote something to the effect of “make Q. ea as present tense invade other forms” (the exact words are hard to make out). Thus it seems likely these “strong presents” were archaic, replaced by the ea-present from other derived verbs. Tolkien also indicated the possibility of strong past forms for a-verbs derived directly from the root: fara → past farne, ala → past alde (< *alnē). But these likewise do not seem to be the norm, and weak pasts like farane appear much more frequently for a-verbs in the corpus.
The net result is that despite their independent origins, the a-verb conjugation became essentially the same as the weak conjugation, with the exception of the occasional (archaic?) strong present and past forms like fára and farne.
-Conceptual Development: In the 1910s and 1920s, dictionary entries for basic verbs typically added the stem vowel at the end of stem: ᴱQ. pere- (QL/73), ᴱQ. liri- (QL/54), ᴱQ. lopo- (QL/56), ᴱQ. lutu- (QL/57). It would therefore be impossible to distinguish “a-verbs” from basic verbs whose base vowel is simply a, such as: ᴱQ. kala- “shine” (QL/44). This makes it very unlikely that a-verbs were a special “durative” verb class in the earliest conceptual period, especially since the imperfect verb tense was not connected to the vowel a in Early Qenya.
+Conceptual Development: In the 1910s and 1920s, dictionary entries for basic verbs typically added the base vowel at the end of stem: ᴱQ. pere- (QL/73), ᴱQ. liri- (QL/54), ᴱQ. lopo- (QL/56), ᴱQ. lutu- (QL/57). It would therefore be impossible to distinguish “a-verbs” from basic verbs whose base vowel is simply a, such as: ᴱQ. kala- “shine” (QL/44). This makes it very unlikely that a-verbs were a special “durative” verb class in the earliest conceptual period, especially since the imperfect verb tense was not connected to the vowel a in Early Qenya.
Possible examples of a-verbs do appear in The Etymologies from the 1930s, such as ᴹQ. lala- “to deny” (Ety/LA) and ᴹQ. mapa- “to grasp, seize” (Ety/MAP), but they do not seem to be inherently “continuous” in sense. Explicitly durative a-verbs were established by the 1940s, however. Tolkien mentioned them in Quendian & Common Eldarin Verbal Structure from mid-1940s:
In addition many bases of simple √TAL form made verbs of a different sort, employing a fixed vocalic suffix (ū or ā̆) after the base, as √KEL: kelu “flow, well up”; √GAL: galā “grow”. These were usually intransitive (not always). The ā-type described states or actions necessarily occupying a (continuous) stretch of time, as Q ’alā- “grow”; ksarā “yearn, long for” (PE22/98).
This verb class was mentioned pretty regularly in documents after that point: in Quenya Verbal System written shortly afterwards (PE22/113, 116), Common Eldarin: Verb Structure from the 1950s (PE22/134) and Late Notes on Verb Structure from 1969 (PE22/151, 163).
Tolkien’s use of the term “a-verb” is not quite as straightforward as presented here, however. He sometimes used this term to describe formative and talat-stem verbs that used ă in their ancient aorist inflections (PE22/136). To completely follow Tolkien’s terminology we would need to distinguish ă-verbs (formative and talat-stem) from ā-verbs (durative verbs as described in this entry). However, since the formative and talat-stem verbs have already have their own terminology, I use the term a-verb for this class to better match the term u-verbs that are verbs derived from primitive roots + u.
]]>Noun plurality: Quenya nouns can be marked with three different kinds of plurals: dual, plural and partitive-plural. The exact plural inflections vary by noun class. The interactions between the plural suffixes and the case suffixes is complex, and is discussed in more detail in the entries for each noun case.
Tolkien himself frequently called these “basic” verbs (PE22/98, 129), but he sometimes labeled them “strong” verbs (PE22/92, 99, 163). This terminology was almost certainly inspired by the verb classes of Germanic-languages (including English), where the “strong” verbs are those that modify the verb stem in the past tense: present “eat” vs. past “ate”, present “come” vs. past “came”. This is opposed to the more regular “weak” verbs that form the past tense with a suffix, which is “-ed” in English: present “marry” vs. past “married”, present “lift” vs. past “lifted”.
Basic verbs in Quenya likewise frequently modify their verb stems in the past tense, a remnant of the Primitive Elvish method of forming past tenses via nasal-infixion. These ancient past tenses inserted an n in the interior of the verb, which was sometimes preserved in Quenya but other times underwent further phonological changes. Thus aorist mate “eat” vs. past mante “ate”, aorist tule “come” vs. past tulle/tulde “came” or (later) túle. By contrast, many derived verbs in Quenya have “weak” past tenses, in the sense that they are formed by adding the past suffix -ne to the verb stem: aorist verya “marry” vs. past veryane “married”, aorist orta “raise” vs. past ortane “raised”.
@@ -84616,7 +84662,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaIn case of [v] from b the historic forms were mn, or mb, but “perfect” stem with lengthening tended to intrude ... tyave, taste: pa.t. tyambe or later tyáve; perf. atyávie (PE22/102).
In this new paradigm, there was a general trend for the relationships between Quenya past and present tenses of basic verbs to be obscured by phonetic developments, and for these obscured past tenses to be reformed by analogy with the perfect (or vice versa). This was true, for example, with basic verbs whose stem ended in v (as above) or l, as with túle the past tense of tul-, replacing older tulle or tulde (PE22/139, 140). These reformations were inconsistently applied, and the result was a past-tense system for basic verbs that could be very unpredictable.
To summarize, throughout Quenya’s conceptual history, the basic verb class was distinguished by irregularities in its past tense. In Early Qenya these irregularities were often the result of two competing past tense formations: vowel-lengthening vs. nasal-infixion. By the 1930s the nasal-infixed forms became the primary basic past tense, with the caveat that sometimes phonetically obscured past tenses were reformed to match the perfect. The basic conjugations for other verb tenses also underwent conceptual development, but those forms were more regular and are better discussed in the entries for the individual verb tenses. More details on the various past tense forms of basic verbs are given in the entry on the Quenya past tense.
]]>Neo-Quenya: I recommend against using the comitative in Neo-Quenya. Its function can be replaced by the preposition ó “with”.
]]>The comparative form of adjectives is not normally expressed by a suffix. In Quenya it is at simplest expressed by the use of the preposition lá: as A (ná) cálima lá B “A is bright beyond B” = “A is brighter than B” (PE17/90).
In earlier notes probably written around the start of the 1960s, Tolkien used a different comparative preposition epe “before (spatially)”: A ancalima na epe B “A is bright before B” (PE17/57); in the actual example Tolkien used anamelda “more dear” even though he translated it as “more bright”. This comparison with epe was used in combination with the intensive prefix an-.
@@ -92974,7 +93022,7 @@ added to aorist stem-form. These are frequent with strong verbs: as kariaThe intensive is formed with an-, assimilated as am- or añ- before labials and velars as appropriate: ampitya “very small”, añcalima “very bright” (written ancalima). The extended form ana- can be used to avoid awkward combinations: anasaila “very wise”. It is not clear how comparatives like “Boromir is wiser now” are formed when something is not compared directly to another, but perhaps it could be expressed as Boromir saila lá ya nés “Boromir is wiser than [beyond what] he was” or with an adverb Boromir ambe saila sí “Boromir [is] more wise now”.
]]>Quenya has similar compound tenses combining time and verbal aspects. Strictly speaking, these Quenya tenses are not “compound tenses” as in English, since they did not involve an auxiliary verb, but they serve a similar function. Tolkien referred to them as either “derivative tenses” (PE22/105) or less accurately as “compound tenses” (PE22/122), and I use the latter term for convenience so I don’t have switch terminology between Quenya and English. The most detailed descriptions of the compound tenses appears in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) of the late 1940s, but there are hints of it in Tolkien’s later writing as well, notably:
Make a Q. past continuous. “was eating”. mātante. istante, oryante, ortante.
@@ -93076,7 +93124,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb StructureI suspect the compound tenses of derived verbs would follow the same patterns, such as: ortea + ne = past imperfect orteáne “was rising” (attested óreáne from orya- seems to be an example of this) or avánie + uva = future perfect avániéva “will have departed”. This would produce past future perfect avániévane “would have departed”, a form whose use is limited to subjunctives. Regardless, with the exception of the past imperfect for basic verbs (mátane), none of these forms are attested in Tolkien’s later writing and they remain very speculative. Of these, only the past imperfect (mátane) and the pluperfect (mátiéne or amátiéne) are likely to see much use in Neo-Quenya.
]]>
Many inflectional suffixes begin with a consonant, and therefore cannot (usually) be added directly to a consonantal noun. There are various ways that Quenya deals with this.
First, many inflections exist with vocalic and consonantal variants, the vocalic variant beginning with (or being) a consonant and the consonantal variant beginning with (or being) a vowel. For example, the Quenya plural suffix is -r after (most) vocalic nouns but -i after consonantal nouns. The dual suffix is -t after (most) vocalic nouns but -u (probably) after consonantal nouns.
@@ -93235,7 +93283,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb StructureOf these, I think the third is most weakly attested: it may have been limited to monosyllabic consonantal nouns, and possibly only in archaic forms.
Neo-Quenya: Most Neo-Quenya authors throw up their hands at all this complexity, and just use the joining vowel e most of the time, since it was widely used in consonantal inflections in the 50s and 60s. Usually exceptions are made for (a) simple assimilations such as menel → ablative menello (VT43/13) and (b) cases where another joining vowel is well attested, such as i for the 1st person possessive suffix -nya: atar → atarinya (LR/61, UT/186), emil → emilinya (VT47/26). I generally recommend this approach as well, though not every Neo-Quenya authors agree what the exact set of exceptions should be.
]]>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).@@ -93338,7 +93386,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb Structure
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).@@ -93346,13 +93394,13 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb Structure
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”:
@@ -93363,7 +93411,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb StructureIn 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”:
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:
@@ -94689,7 +94741,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb Structure ]]>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.
@@ -94752,7 +94804,7 @@ better mātānē > mātane (Late Notes on Verb StructureThe 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).
]]>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.
]]>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:
@@ -94882,7 +94934,7 @@ There was also a “general purpose” demonstrative en used in combinatiThis 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.
]]>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).
@@ -94914,7 +94966,7 @@ There was also a “general purpose” demonstrative en used in combinati -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-.
]]>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).
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I prefer to use the verb ᴺQ. cuita- for “to waken, rouse”.
]]>Where these losses occur, they are for vowels that carry little-to-no semantic weight. Examples include:
+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:
+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):
+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.
]]>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).
@@ -109892,7 +110009,7 @@ The parenthetic consonantal suffixes often added only the short form with variouı̯e 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.
]]>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:
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.
@@ -110424,7 +110541,7 @@ mólome).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.
]]>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.
]]>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-.
]]>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-.
]]>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.
]]>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:
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:
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”.
]]>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.
]]>@@ -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.
]]>
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).- + - @@ -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: ]]> -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.
]]>In the original prayer, the response “pray for us” (Q. arca atarmë) would have followed each line addressing Mary, but Tolkien only included this phrase in the first line where it appeared (a Aina Maria arca atarmë). Similarly, he abbreviated “have mercy on us” (Q. órava (o)messë) as o.o in the last line where it appeared.
@@ -143752,7 +143959,7 @@ beast” (QL/50). In this document it had an ancient form lamṇ, and accForms marked with a * are unattested and hypothetical.
Origins of the locative: As discussed in the entry on adverbial cases, the locative was originally just a suffix used to form adverbs from a noun. It was derived from the ancient element ✶sē “at” (VT43/30) which was “fortified” to ssē or stē (PE21/79), of which only -ssē was used in Quenya. There is a related Quenya case suffix -s whose exact function is unclear. See the entry on the s-case for further discussion.
@@ -143939,7 +144156,7 @@ beast” (QL/50). In this document it had an ancient form lamṇ, and acc show-element-of="true"/>Conceptual Development: This word seems to be a remnant of Tolkien’s investigation into the origin of the river-name S. Lhûn (PE17/136-137; VT48/27-28), where Tolkien first considered having a related Quenya word hlōna “a river” (PE17/136), then another related word lōn(e) “deep pool or lake” (PE17/137), but this notion was rejected and Tolkien said:
The stem (S)LOW- does not appear in Quenya, where it is replaced by √LŎNŎ, as in lōn/lōne (pl. lōni) “deep pool or river-feeding well” (PE17/137).
This word and its derivation seems to have reemerged as lóna “pool, mere” in the notes on The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, as described above (VT42/10).
]]>A weak “pluperfect” was made in Quenya, by adding to the perfect participle the past-suffix -nḗ. So karnelyane “I was having made = I had made”; túlielyane “I had come”, lasselyane “I had heard”, etc.
@@ -144861,7 +145077,7 @@ beast” (QL/50). In this document it had an ancient form lamṇ, and accThe origin of the “long perfect” is rather convoluted. In QVS, Quenya had a complex system of compound tenses produced by combining various grammatical endings (see compound tenses for further details). In this document, Quenya had a suffix -lya that Tolkien labeled the imperfect participle, that “denoted (more or less) continuous action contemporary with that of the main verb” (PE22/107). It was added to the verb stem: karalya “doing, making”; tululya “coming”. The same suffix was used to produce a “perfect participle”, added to either the past or perfect verb form: karnelya “having done”; †tullelya, utúlielya “having come”. These “normally refer to an action that has been (or was) completed before the main action” (PE22/108).
These perfect participles could be used to form a periphrastic (that is, indirect) perfect tense as in i nér (yé) karnelya “the man (is) having done [it] = has done [it]” (in QVS, yé was the verb for “to be”). In derived verbs, these periphrastic expressions became the norm: i nér (yé) ortanelya “the man (is) having raised [it]”. The perfect participle then developed into a verb form, with the final a becoming e by analogy with the normal past/perfect: karnelye, ortanelye. It seems that in exceptionally long verbs, this new perfect suffix -nelye could reduce to -lye: ampanotelye.
Neo-Quenya: It is unlikely that the long perfect remained valid in Quenya as Tolkien conceived of it in the 1950s and 60s. I would not use this construction in Neo-Quenya, sticking with the ordinary perfect instead.
]]>
Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon from the 1910s, the word for “heavy” was ᴱQ. “heavy” from the root ᴱ√ “support” (QL/88). In the (Early) Noldorin Dictionary from the 1920s, Tolkien introduced the form ᴱQ. “heavy” (PE13/163), but towards the end of that decade he used ᴱQ. lunga in notes associated with the poem (PE16/75).
ᴹQ. reappeared in The Etymologies from the 1930s, this time as a derivative of ᴹ✶, consistent with the a-affection in its Noldorin cognate (Ety/LUG¹). At this point in time, was Doriathrin/Ilkorin rather than a Noldorin name (Ety/MAP), so there was no conflict with that name.
After Tolkien abandoned the Ilkorin language, would have become a Sindarin name, and Tolkien needed a new etymology for it. Judging by its later Quenya cognate (VT47/19), it seems that Tolkien revised the primitive form of this word from ✶lungā to ✶lungŭ, as described above, possibly a restoration of its etymology from the 1920s. This meant there was no a-affection in the Sindarin development, making S. the Sindarin form of the word.
-Neo-Quenya: I used to prefer lungo for the Quenya word for “heavy”, but the form lunga has been known for longer, and has the advantage of being directly attested, albeit only in earlier writings. There are also very few adjectives ending in o, and it is not clear how lungo would be inflected in (for example) a plural form. As a result, I now prefer lunga (pl. lungë) as the normal Quenya adjective for “heavy”. I only use lungu- in compounds.
]]>Neo-Quenya: Some Neo-Quenya writers (including myself at various points) prefer the earlier adjective for “heavy”: ᴹQ. (Ety/LUG¹), since (a) it is directly attested and (b) has an obvious plural form lungë. Unfortunately, this earlier adjective is not compatible with S. . As such, I currently prefer Q. lungo, and would assume it has a plural form *lungwi similar to nouns like ᴹQ. (angu-), pl. angwi (Ety/ANGWA).
]]>Neo-Quenya: This word conflicts with later words like ᴹQ. malo (malu-) “pollen, yellow powder” (Ety/SMAL) or “rust” (PE21/12; PE15/77), making its continued validity as “moth” rather questionable. However, the only other attested Elvish “moth” word is G. fufril of unclear etymology (GL/36), which is very challenging to adapt to Neo-Quenya. Thus I currently recommend retaining ᴺQ. malo for “moth”, as a derivative of the later root ᴹ√MBAL, but altering its stem form to malo- (< *mbalō) to make it more distinct from the “pollen, rust” words.
]]>Neo-Quenya: This word conflicts with later words like ᴹQ. malo (malu-) “pollen, yellow powder” (Ety/SMAL) or “rust” (PE21/12; PE15/77), making its continued validity as “moth” rather questionable. However, the only other attested Elvish “moth” word is G. fufril of unclear etymology (GL/36), making it very challenging to adapt to Neo-Quenya. Thus I currently recommend retaining ᴺQ. malo for “moth”, as a derivative of the later root ᴹ√MBAL, but altering its stem form to malo- (< *mbalō) to make it more distinct from the “pollen, rust” words.
]]>Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
-métima hresta-llo cír-a = “*last beach-from sail-(present)”]]>
métima hresta-llo cír-a = “*last beach-from cleave-(present)”]]>
Conceptual Development: In earlier writings, the words and is used for the same concept (PE17/124; NM/238).
]]>Origins of monosyllabic nouns: In Common Eldarin, monosyllabic nouns had some interesting behaviors, some of which are reflected in the forms used in “modern” Quenya. In particular, consonantal nouns in Common Eldarin (CE) had a distinct subjective case, made by lengthening the vowel of the final syllable: ✶tal vs. subjective ✶tāl, ✶atar vs. subjective ✶atār (PE21/75). Thus the base form (to which inflectional suffixes were added) had a short vowel (✶tal-), subjects had a long vowel (✶tāl) and direct objects had a short vowel (✶tal).
@@ -160720,7 +160949,7 @@ remained unchanged, except in certain combinations discussed below. Later, but iMonosyllabics in C.E. cons. + vowel ... nouns were made only by derivative additions. Nouns without such addition were perhaps even primitively rare, and in any case few have survived or left discoverable [?traces.] These were pē “lip”, pū ?, phā “breath, puff of breath”, pī “small insect, fly”, mā “hand”, mō “person”, mbā “sheep” su, “wind” skū ?, skā ?, kā “home, house”, ñ(g)ā “terror, terrible thing”, lū “bow”, srā “body”, grā “dog”. pē, phā, pī, mbā, mō, sū prob[ably] were original nouns ... Of these pē, fā, pī, sū, *kā, *hrā, *lū survived in Q. but those marked * were [?doubled and extended] (etymological notes from 1968, VT47/35).
Assuming vocalic monosyllables were possible in CE, they seem to be an exception to the rule that CE vocalic nouns could not end in ī, ū. It is unclear what their ancient plural/dual forms would have been.
Conceptual Development: In the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, the declensions of monosyllabic consonantal nouns were much more likely to use assimilation when adding suffixes than disyllabic or longer nouns (PE21/20-24). Tolkien also distinguished a set of (mostly vocalic) monosyllabic nouns with irregular declensions (PE21/38). These irregular nouns ended in vowels, but in Primitive Elvish had some other consonant that became final and was then lost.
]]>Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, Tolkien gave the basic negative root as ᴱ√Ū² (QL/96) with extensions ᴱ√UMU and ᴱ√UVU (QL/98). These extensions were the basis for a negative verb ᴱQ. um- “to not be” and a negative prefix ú- or uv-, the latter used before vowels. Tolkien also gave another primitive negative in the form of syllabic ᴱ✶ḷ- (QL/41) which developed into al-, il-, ul- based on its phonetic environment (PE12/11; QL/29, 41, 97). ul- seems to have taken on an additional “bad” connotation, and became the basis of words like ᴱQ. ulka “evil” and ᴱQ. ulban “monster” (QL/97).
The negative verb ᴱQ. um- reappeared in the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s as (masc. pl.) tūmil “they ... not”, (neut. pl.) taumil and (fem. pl.) tyūmil (PE14/86). The word ᴱQ. munta “nothing” was probably related (PE14/48, 81). A plural negative ur appears in the sentence ᴱQ. néri ur natsi nostalen máre which might mean “*men are not beings good by nature” (PE15/32) and singular ui in ᴱQ. sinda nekka ui sara ro sinda hyalin me sinda móro “*this pen is not writing on this paper with this ink” (PE16/146), these sentences being from the 1910s and 1920s, respectively.
@@ -167386,7 +167620,7 @@ immediate present or to the future; it could only be fully understood by one who -Conceptual Development: This word first appeared in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with two senses: “river” and (archaic) “†water”. Tolkien indicated the two senses were based on distinct roots: ᴱ√NEŘE [NEÐE] and ᴱ√NENE respectively, with two distinct stem forms nend- and nēn (QL/64-65). The Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa also mentions the forms nen (nēn-) “water” versus nen(d-) “river” (PME/64-65). In the English-Qenya Dictionary of the mid-1920s Tolkien had both nēn “river” (PE15/76) and nēn “water” (PE15/78), but in the Early Qenya Grammar he had only nēn “water” (PE14/43, 72), also appearing as nen “water” in documents on The Valmaric Script from this period (PE14/110).
-In the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, Tolkien had ᴹQ. nēn “water”, but in this document it had nēn- with long ē in its inflected forms as well (PE21/23). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, however, uninflected nén “water” had a stem form of nen- with short e (Ety/NEN), and the reasons for this variation was discussed in Primitive Quendian Structure: Final Consonants from 1936, the nominative/objective distinction noted above (PE21/64). This seems to be the paradigm Tolkien stuck with thereafter.
]]>In the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, Tolkien had ᴹQ. nēn “water”, but in this document it had nēn- with long ē in its inflected forms as well (PE21/23). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, however, uninflected nén “water” had a stem form of nen- with short e (Ety/NEN), and the reasons for this variation was discussed in Primitive Quendian Structure: Final Consonants from 1936, the nominative/objective distinction noted above (PE21/64). This seems to be the paradigm Tolkien stuck with thereafter, as evidenced by S. nen “water” rather than **nîn.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I’d mostly use nicu- as an impersonal verb for cold weather: nique “it is cold, it is freezing”. For the freezing of water or similar substances, I’d use ᴺQ. hel-. For “to snow” I’d use ᴺQ. hris-, a modernization of archaic †hriz-.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I’d mostly use nicu- as an impersonal verb for cold weather: nique “it is cold, it is freezing”. For the freezing of water or similar substances, I’d use ᴺQ. hel-. For “to snow” I’d use ᴺQ. hris-, a modernization of archaic †hriz-.
]]>There is a possible “last gasp” of this nominative marker in some notes from the 1960s in the archaic plural (nominative?) form lassin, but the wording is ambiguous:
Syntactically the loss of distinction of nominative/accusative, lassi accusative as nominative (for lassin), fanyar, (ilye) tier are nominative for accusative (PE17/76).
It is also possibly that lassin is an Old Quenya or Classical Quenya nominative plural derived from the Common Eldarin nominative plural suffix -(ī)m, mentioned above.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use this verb primarily in the sense “beget” = “give birth to”, as opposed to onta- “to beget” = “*to conceive”. It might be used impersonally to have the sense “to be born”, as in nostane ni loar canquain né “[it] birthed me forty years ago = I was born forty years ago”. I would also use it to mean “cause” in the metaphorical sense of “giving birth to” an abstraction or creation.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use this verb primarily in the sense “beget” = “give birth to”, as opposed to onta- “to beget” = “*to conceive”. It might be used impersonally to have the sense “to be born”, as in nostane ni loar canquain né “[it] birthed me forty years ago = I was born forty years ago”.
]]>The short instrumental suffix -in is seen only in BD and EEED, which hints that they may be close contemporaries. However the vocalic long instrumental is different in the two declensions: EEED -inen vs. BD -nen. Indeed, looking at the full set of suffixes, the forms in EEED are closest to the forms in declension charts from the late 1920s, v2 and v3 in particular, especially if we ignore the unusual -nye locative suffix which appears nowhere other than EEED:
V | Dat. | Gen. | All. | Abl. | Loc. | Inst. | Adv. | Com. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
vocalic | EQG | -r | -n | -nta | -llo | -sse | -inen | -ndon | XXX |
consonantal | EQG | -e | -o | -anta | -ullo | -isse | -inen | -indon | XXX |
vocalic | 2 | -r | -o | XXX | XXX | XXX | -inen | XXX | XXX |
consonantal | 2 | -en/-ar | -o | XXX | XXX | XXX | -inen | XXX | XXX |
vocalic | EQG | -r | -n | -nta | -llo | -sse | -inen | -ndon | — |
consonantal | EQG | -e | -o | -anta | -ullo | -isse | -inen | -indon | — |
vocalic | 2 | -r | -o | — | — | — | -inen | — | — |
consonantal | 2 | -en/-ar | -o | — | — | — | -inen | — | — |
vocalic | EEED | -r | -n | -nta | -llo | -sse | -inen | -ndon | -iko |
consonantal | EEED | -en/ar | -o | -ata | -ullo | -isse | -inen | -anon | -iko |
vocalic | 3 | -r | -o | -nta | -llo | -sse | -inen | -ndon | -iko |
consonantal | 3 | -en/-ar | -o | -(a)ta | -(ul)lo | -(is)se | -inen | -anon | -iko |
vocalic | 4 | -r | -o | -nta | -llo | -sse | -nen | -ndon | XXX |
consonantal | 4 | -en | -o | -(un)ta | -(ul)lo | -(es)se | -anen | -anon/-undon | XXX |
vocalic | 4 | -r | -o | -nta | -llo | -sse | -nen | -ndon | — |
consonantal | 4 | -en | -o | -(un)ta | -(ul)lo | -(es)se | -anen | -anon/-undon | — |
The dual forms present a similar picture:
V | Dat. | Gen. | All. | Abl. | Loc. | Inst. | Adv. | Com. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
vocalic | EQG | -qit | -qint | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX |
consonantal | EQG | -qit | -qint | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX |
vocalic | 2 | -u/-n | -u/-ur | XXX | XXX | XXX | -imet | XXX | XXX |
consonantal | 2 | -ur | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX | XXX |
vocalic | EQG | -qit | -qint | — | — | — | — | — | — |
consonantal | EQG | -qit | -qint | — | — | — | — | — | — |
vocalic | 2 | -u/-n | -u/-ur | — | — | — | -imet | — | — |
consonantal | 2 | -ur | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
vocalic | EEED | -ur | -u | -unta | -ullut | -nye(t) | -imet | -ndos | -uhto |
consonantal | EEED | -ur | -u | -atas | -ullut | -isset/-nyet | -imet | -anos | -uhto |
vocalic | 3 | -u | -u | -ntat | -llut | -sset | -imet | -ndos | -uhto |
consonantal | 3 | -u | -u | -(a)tat | -ullut | -isset | -imet | XXX | -uhto |
vocalic | 4 | -u | -u | -ntau | -llut | -sset | -met | XXX | XXX |
consonantal | 4 | -u | -uhta | -(un)tau | -(ul)lut | -(us)set | -umet | XXX | XXX |
consonantal | 3 | -u | -u | -(a)tat | -ullut | -isset | -imet | — | -uhto |
vocalic | 4 | -u | -u | -ntau | -llut | -sset | -met | — | — |
consonantal | 4 | -u | -uhta | -(un)tau | -(ul)lut | -(us)set | -umet | — | — |
The forms in EQG are quite distinct from EEED, with the exception of the vocalic/consonantal genitive -n/-o. Furthermore, the forms in v4 begin to drift away from v2, v3 and EEED. My best guess is that EEED is a close contemporary of v2 and v3, and I place it between those two declensions in my analysis. The main counterarguments against this are the -n/-o genitive (otherwise only in EQG), the short instrumental -in (otherwise only in BD) and “partitive” -hta (otherwise only in v5b, v5c).
Declension Ordering: Based on the above, I assume the ordering of declension charts is EQG > v1, v2 > EEED > v3 to v5c > BD > v6 > Plotz. This is the ordering I will use in the discussion of specific noun case entries.
]]>Conceptual Development: In the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s (EQG) Tolkien gave the main noun classes as vocalic and consonantal: “Nouns. Are divided into two classes: (A) vocalic; (B) consonantal (PE14/42)”. In the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, he had a much more elaborate system of noun classes, with numerous variations based on (a) the final vowel or (b) the final consonant (PE21/2-3). He broke nouns up into the following classes and subclasses:
In the EQG, 200, 300, etc. placed the multiplier before the 100: ᴱQ. yúyo tuksa “200 = two hundred”, ᴱQ. nelde tukse “300 = three hundreds”. Somewhat interestingly, while the Early Qenya number for “200” uses singular tuksa, the number for “300” uses the plural declined as if it were an adjective: nelde tukse. Perhaps larger numbers would be similarly pluralized: otso húmi “seven thousands”, enqe mindóri “six millions” but ᴱQ. yúyo yundóre “two billion”. This is identical to how numbers modify nouns in EQG (and in Tolkien’s later writing): with “two” the noun remains in the singular, but with three or more it is in the plural (see Numbers Modifying Nouns below).
In EQG, numbers were placed before the noun they modify, but in later writing they are placed after. So it is probable that the Early Qenya ordering yúyo tuxa, nelde tuxe would need to become tuxa atta, tuxe nelde “200, 300” to be compatible with Tolkien’s later ideas. Hat tip to Raccoon for suggesting this to me.
Multiples: English has specialized words for indicating the number of times something occurred: “once, twice, thrice”, as well as prefixes like “uni-, bi-, tri-”. In the Early Qenya Grammar these were ᴱQ. eru “once”, yú “twice”, nel “thrice”, kan “four times”, especially as prefixal forms (PE14/51, 84). There are signs of these prefixes in Tolkien’s later writings, such as [ᴹQ.] neltil “triangle” (Ety/NEL), Nelólamaite “triconsonantal” (PE18/33, 84), and cantil “fourth finger” (VT47/26).
-Given Tolkien’s later use of Eru as the name of God, it seems unlikely that it still meant “once” in the 1950s and 60s. Perhaps er “one” could be used adverbially for that purpose: carin sa er “I did that once”. In later writings er- did appear as a prefixal form, as in: Erólamaite “uniconsonantal” (PE18/33, 84). Similarly, in Early Qenya yúyo meant “two” but in later writings it meant “both”, so the later prefixal form was at(a)- or att- as in Attólamaite “biconsonantal” (PE18/33, 84), attalya [at-tal-ya] “biped (lit. two footed)” (WJ/389), ataformaite “ambidextrous” (VT49/9). Compare this with “twilight” = ᴹQ. yúkale or Q. úyale (< ✶yuy(u)ŋal).
+Given Tolkien’s later use of Eru as the name of God, it seems unlikely that it still meant “once” in the 1950s and 60s. Perhaps er “one” could be used adverbially for that purpose: carin sa er “I did that once”. In later writings er- did appear as a prefixal form, as in: Erólamaite “uniconsonantal” (PE18/33, 84). Similarly, in Early Qenya yúyo meant “two” but in later writings it meant “both”, so the later prefixal form was at(a)- or att- as in Attólamaite “biconsonantal” (PE18/33, 84), attalya [at-tal-ya] “biped (lit. two footed)” (WJ/389), ataformaite “ambidextrous” (VT49/9). Compare this with “twilight” = ᴹQ. yúkale or Q. yúyal (< ✶yuy(u)ŋal).
In Tolkien’s later writing there was also the prefix per- “half, semi-” as in Pereldar “Half-elven” (Let/386, PM/348) or [ᴹQ.] perómanda “semivocalic” (PE18/30).
In EQG there were also long forms produced using the suffix ᴱQ. -llume “times” related to ᴱQ. lúme “time”. Since lúme remained the word for time in Tolkien’s later writing, the suffix -llume may remain valid as well. From this we get (PE14/51):
This name originally developed from primitive ✶ = ✶ + ✶, which became either Oarel or (WJ/363). The Oarel form was preferred due to its similarity to the preposition (WJ/364). Its plural form Oareldi was influenced by the archaic plural †Eldi of Elda (WJ/363). In the Vanyarin dialect, the forms were and . In the Telerin branches, only descendants of the Au- forms were used: T. and S. (WJ/364).
]]>This name originally developed from primitive ✶ = ✶ + ✶, which became either Oarel or (WJ/363). The Oarel form was preferred due to its similarity to the preposition (WJ/364). Its plural form Oareldi was influenced by the archaic plural †Eldi of Elda (WJ/363). In the Vanyarin dialect, the forms were and . In the Telerin branches, only descendants of the Au- forms were used: T. and S. (WJ/364).
]]>Quenya expression of wish. nai + future. nai elye hiruva. but God bless you (which includes now), nai + present indicative. nai Eru tye mānata (1967 linguistic notes, PE17/75).
The last lines of the chant express a wish (or a hope) that though she could not go, Frodo might perhaps be allowed to do so. Nā-i > nai “be it that” expresses rather a wish than a hope, and would be more closely rendered “may it be that” (thou wilt find) than by “maybe” (Commentary on Namárië, 1967, The Road Goes Ever On, RGEO/60).@@ -183461,7 +183740,7 @@ immediate present or to the future; it could only be fully understood by one who
Conceptual Development: The use of nai with optatives dates all the way back to the Early Qenya Grammar (EQG), but with a slightly different origin:
The conditional or subjunctive. This is not expressed inflectionally but by particles, nai and ki, of which nai represents remoter possibility (“might”), ki (nearer) “may”. The pure optative is also often expressed by nai, or {naiki >>} naike combined, at head of wish ... naike hi·tule “would she might come” (of something remotely possible, or impossible) (PE14/59).
In EQG nai is an expression of possibility, much as it was four decades later in LVS, though in EQG it was a particle rather than an impersonal verb.
]]>This word could also be used with the sense “warning, caution” (VT41/15) or even “premonition” (VT41/13). It seems that the órë and its urges was viewed as almost external to the mind itself, as indicated by the phrase órenya quetë nin “my heart tells me” = “I feel compelled to ...”, not unlike pop-cultural “shoulder angel and devil” whispering into your ear. Tolkien said that in Quenya this word was associated with the sense of √OR “rise” and its urges were seen as rising up within the spirit (VT41/13). Compare this to the words for ordinary feelings, such as fëafelmë “*(lit.) spirit-impulse”.
+This word could also be used with the sense “warning, caution” (VT41/15) or even “premonition” (VT41/13). It seems that the órë and its urges was viewed as almost external to the mind itself, as indicated by the phrase órenya quetë nin “my heart tells me” = “I feel compelled to ...”, not unlike the pop-cultural “shoulder angel and devil” whispering into your ear. Tolkien said that in Quenya this word was associated with the sense of √OR “rise” and its urges were seen as rising up within the spirit (VT41/13). Compare this to the words for ordinary feelings, such as fëafelmë “*(lit.) spirit-impulse”.
The word órë was also the name of tengwa #21 used for a weak and untrilled medial r (LotR/1123), many of which originated from primitive intervocalic [z] or [d]. There is no sign that órë ever had such a consonant medially, however, and it seems this name was chosen simply because it had a medial r.
Conceptual Development: There is no clear precursor to this word in Tolkien’s earlier writings, except perhaps ᴹQ. hóre “impulse” (Ety/KHOR).
]]>The Eldarin languages distinguish in forms and use between a “partitive” or “particular” plural, and the general or total plural (Let/178, in a 1954 letter to Naomi Mitchison).
Both Quenya & Sindarin have for most nouns two plural formations: the general or group, and the partitive or special. The plural element in nouns is [i] as a suffix [ī]. Plurals formed with this are in Quenya “general”, and the partitive is formed with -li (PE17/62, draft of a 1955 letter to David Masson).@@ -188608,7 +188888,7 @@ so Eldar “Elves as a kind or people, or all the Elves concerned”;
The general plural Noldoli continued to appear in Silmarillion drafts up to the 1930s (LR/119) but was abandoned sometime in the mid-thirties in favor of Noldor, which had appeared sporadically prior to this point (for example on LT1/162). The r-plural was the norm in The Etymologies, but the suffix ᴹQ. -li did appear as a “pl. suffix” (Ety/LĪ). In that document it was used only once in an actual word, Telelli the plural form of Teler (Ety/TELES), but this use does not seems to be partitive in nature. The first explicit mention of a partitive plural is in the Primitive Quendian Final Consonants document which was dated 1936 (PE21/xiii). The relevant text:
In keeping with this dual distinction between the partitive “2” and the whole or dual-group, the Eldarin languages show a tendency also in the plural to make a distinction between the “partitive plural” — men, some men; and the group plural — the men, all the men of a group or kind, the whole body. Thus in Q. Eldar “elves”, Eldali “the Elves, the whole Elda-race”. The latter form was (as the duals) originally syntactically singular, and was hardly distinguished in use or sense from the cpd. noun Eldalie “Elf-folk” (PE21/57).
In this text, the -li suffix has the opposite of its later meaning: it functions as a collective plural not unlike Noldorin/Sindarin -ath. This is in keeping with the apparent use of Telelli in The Etymologies (above). The first clear use of the -li suffix as a proper partitive plural is the early 1950s quote from Common Eldarin Noun Structure, given above (PE21/73).
-Neo-Quenya: As mentioned above, most Neo-Quenya authors recommend using the joining vowel -e- with the suffix -li for consonantal nouns, using the assimilated forms only in a few cases. Thorsten Renk suggested using an assimilated form only for nouns ending in -l or -r, where Tamas Ferencz suggested doing so for -n as well. I think using either an assimilated form or a joining vowel would be fine for Neo-Quenya. I personally would only used an assimilated form for nouns ending in l and maybe r to avoid too much confusion. I think atanéli “some men” sounds better than atalli, but either could be correct; likewise ataréli “some fathers” may be preferable to atalli. As indicated by these examples, the added -e- would often be subject to prosodic lengthening.
+Neo-Quenya: As mentioned above, most Neo-Quenya authors recommend using the joining vowel -e- with the suffix -li for consonantal nouns, using the assimilated forms only in a few cases. Thorsten Renk suggested using an assimilated form only for nouns ending in -l or -r, where Tamas Ferencz suggested doing so for -n as well. I think using either an assimilated form or a joining vowel would be fine for Neo-Quenya. I personally using assimilated form for nouns ending in a single consonant, however, since these are all that are attested.
As indicated above, another possibility is that the stem vowel of the noun is used to join the suffix to the noun, so that the partitive plural would be atanáli; this fits the phonological history of the Quenya, where syllabic l often copied the preceding vowel. A strong argument (suggested to me by Shihali in a Discord chat from November 2019) can be made that the joining vowel should be -i- rather than -e-, based on general-plural examples like elenillor (MC/222): ataníli. Both of these are an interesting ideas, but until we get clearer evidence, I personally recommend sticking with the established Neo-Quenya convention of -e- for now.
Regarding the “size” of a partitive plural group, it is clear that in Elvish, singular < dual < partitive plural (some/many) < general plural, and thus in theory, the suffix -li can be used for any subgroup in between “two” and “all” of the group in question. The closest equivalent English word is “some”, but in English absent other qualifiers, “some” tends to imply the minority of the group, more towards “two” than towards “all”. I think the reverse is true in Elvish, where absent other qualifiers, -li leans more towards “all” than towards “two”. This is based on (a) the origin of this suffix in the root √LI “many” and (b) the gloss “many waves” in the phrase i falmalinnar imbe met “on the many waves between us” (LotR/377; RGEO/59).
Furthermore, in the 1964 letter mentioned above, Tolkien glossed Eldali as “some Elves, a lot of Elves” implying a larger rather than smaller group (PE17/135). Thus Eldali matir massa doesn’t quite mean the same thing as English “some Elves eat bread”, since in English “some” implies (but does not require) the minority, whereas in Elvish -li implies (but does not require) the majority.
]]>vanwa, adj. “gone, past, lost”, irregular in having -nwa, usually a passive suffix (from Notes on Galadriel’s Song, NGS, late 1950s or early 1960s, PE17/63).@@ -188729,7 +189009,7 @@ so Eldar “Elves as a kind or people, or all the Elves concerned”;
Of these, only the past/perfect passive participle kárienwa reappears in Tolkien’s later writing (PE17/68), but the other forms might remain valid since we know the active participle could still be inflected with various verb tenses into the 1960s (PE22/154-155). In QVS the imperfect passive participles for derived verbs ending in -a added the suffix -ina directly to the stem, even with half-strong and a-verbs: istaina, nahtaina (PE22/108), sulpaina (PE22/115), faraina (PE22/116). This means that weak verbs like orta- could not distinguish between their normal and imperfect passive participles: they would both have the form ortaina (PE22/107, 108). The imperfect passive participle for u-verbs isn’t attested, but it might be liruina with or without a lengthened base vowel and -ina added to the stem (or alternately, just liruna).
Finally, it is not certain whether passive participles used as adjectives would be declined in the plural to agree with the noun they modify, but unlike the active participle, the general consensus among Neo-Quenya writers is that they probably do. The passive participle strongly resembles common adjectives like those ending in -na which all show plural agreement, and this would probably pull passive participles into the same pattern. There is one example that might illustrate such an agreement: rakine tengwi “stripped signs” (VT39/6), which might be the plural form of a passive participle rakina “stripped”.
-Other views: There are one or two passive participles in the Markirya poem of the 1960s that break the patterns described above: rak- → rákina “broken”, and possibly also rúkina “confused, shattered, disordered” (MC/223). Another example ᴹQ. nótina “counted” appeared in the poem Fíriel’s Song from the 1930s (LR/72). Prior to the mid-2000s this list made up the majority of published passive participles, and some older Neo-Quenya Courses concluded that the passive participle for basic verbs lengthened the stem vowel, including the courses of Helge Fauskanger and Thorsten Renk. These courses predate the publication of Parma Eldalamberon #22 (PE22) which describes passive participles in great detail. Based on PE22, I think the Markirya participles represent a transient variation in passive participle formation.
+Other views: There are one or two passive participles in the Markirya poem of the 1960s that break the patterns described above: rak- → rákina “broken”, and possibly also rúkina “confused, shattered, disordered” (MC/223). Another example ᴹQ. nótina “counted” appeared in the poem Fíriel’s Song from the 1930s (LR/72). Prior to the mid-2000s this list made up the majority of published passive participles, and some older Neo-Quenya Courses concluded that the passive participle for basic verbs lengthened the base vowel, including the courses of Helge Fauskanger and Thorsten Renk. These courses predate the publication of Parma Eldalamberon #22 (PE22) which describes passive participles in great detail. Based on PE22, I think the Markirya participles represent a transient variation in passive participle formation.
Furthermore, the suffix -na without an i is very common as an adjectival suffix. It appears with number of verbal stems, such as ᴹQ. harna “wounded” < ᴹ✶skarnā (Ety/SKAR) or melda “beloved” < ✶melnā (PE17/41). Earlier Neo-Quenya courses guessed that some of these were actually passive participles representative of their verb classes, but with the publication of PE22 it became clear that these were simply ancient adjectives, not part of verb conjugation:
-nā, -nwā. Whether this is ancient or due to the influence of the n as infix and in nē, these suffixes, as applied to verbs had usually an implication of past or complete process. They were thus specially used to form passive participles; though the fact that they could be applied anciently to intransitive stems shows that [they] were not in origin specifically passive. So kalinā “bright”. nā was anciently added to the bare stem, or to the aorist stem (whence came the very frequent ending inā). Owing to the many consonant changes caused by the addition of nā to other consonants the older forms, without intervening vowel, did not survive in any recorded language as part of regular conjugation [emphasis added]; but they all preserve many isolated adjectival forms of this form: as matnā “eaten”: Q matta “food” (Common Eldarin: Verb Structure, early 1950s, PE22/136).
Using the passive participle: Almost all of our usage examples for the passive participle have it as an adjective formed from a transitive verb:
@@ -188779,7 +189059,7 @@ passive tŭlĭna; pass[ive past] tulinwa (tulīna).The variant passive participles in the Markirya with vowel lengthening like rákina “broken” might represent a distinct paradigm, but I would not use this pattern of passive participle formation for Neo-Quenya anymore given the preponderance of examples where this lengthening does not occur (most from PE22).
]]>Origins of the Past Tense: The Quenya past tense originated from two competing ancient patterns: (1) nasal infixion (mat- → mantē) and (2) the past tense suffix -nē (kar- → karnē). Tolkien described these ancient past forms in numerous places:
On the other hand n-infixion and n-suffixion remained concurrently in use, and often performed identical functions: as in the strong past tenses formed with either n-infix + suffix ē, yē, or with suffix nē, nyē, as √KAT pa.t. *ka-n-tē beside √KAR pa.t. *kar-nē (Tengwesta Qenderinwa 1, late 1930s, PE18/46).@@ -189151,7 +189431,7 @@ Where the base was verbal a strong form without present affix frequently appeare
By the 1930s and 40s ya-verb pasts were mostly replaced by weak or half-strong forms (sirya → sirinye). However, there is at least one example of an “Early Qenya style” past form of a ya-verb in Tolkien’s later writing: lelya- “attract” → past lēline (PE17/151).
The past tenses in the Quenya Lexicon end in -e, consistent with the past forms in The Qenya Verb Forms also written around this time (PE14/28). In the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s, however, past tenses of basic verbs ended in -ie, though weak pasts still showed final -ne (PE14/57-58). As Tolkien described it:
-The past stem is obtained by the suffix -ye, (i̯ie >) -ie, or -ne; but -ie (the commonest) is normally accompanied by stem strengthening consisting of (1) a-infixion, (2) n-infixion, (3) vowel lengthening (this last perhaps largely an analogical extension from the ā resulting in many stems). The stems that apparently have an original stem vowel ḷ, ṛ, ṇ (ṣ) thus often show a kind of vowel gradation between il, ul &c., the product in the normal stems, and al &c., the product (either by nasal infixion or a ?) in the past.+
The past stem is obtained by the suffix -ye, (i̯ie >) -ie, or -ne; but -ie (the commonest) is normally accompanied by stem strengthening consisting of (1) a-infixion, (2) n-infixion, (3) vowel lengthening (this last perhaps largely an analogical extension from the ā resulting in many stems). The stems that apparently have an original base vowel ḷ, ṛ, ṇ (ṣ) thus often show a kind of vowel gradation between il, ul &c., the product in the normal stems, and al &c., the product (either by nasal infixion or a ?) in the past.
There are no obvious examples of past tenses involving a-infixion in the 1920s, but attested pasts of basic verbs from the 1920s show the same competition between nasal-infixion and vowel lengthening seen in the 1910s, the main change being that the strong past tenses now ended in -ie, sometimes triggering various phonetic changes like ti > tsi > si:
Perfect. This described an action or process that was completed in the immediate past, but the effects of which are still present. It is not certain whether this tense was completely differentiated from the next (Past) in Common Eldarin, or there were simply two similar competing methods of forming a “past tense”, the functions of which were not yet clearly fixed (PE22/130).
A nearly identical description appeared in Quendian & Common Eldarin Verbal Structure (EVS1) from the late 1940s (PE22/95-96). Like English, the Quenya perfect is used when the effects of the completed action are still felt in the present time, as distinct from the past tense, where the action simply occurred at some point in the past. For example, if you say “the man lived in the city (for many years)”, you only know that at some point in the past the man was in the city. If, however, you say “the man has lived in the city (for many years)”, you imply that he has lived in it up to the present day.
@@ -190938,7 +191228,7 @@ Where the base was verbal a strong form without present affix frequently appeare -The perfective participle. This was formed with -nwa. It originally was not passive or active but denoted the completion of the action denoted by the verb. It is found in words outside the verbal system, as from stem vā- “go”: vanwa “gone for good, departed (dead, lost)”. Added to the aorist stem, or in weak verbs the aorist-present, it retains this function: karinwa “made, finished, done, completed”; tulinwa “arrived, come, now at hand”; alanwa “full-grown, mature, adult”; istanwa “known, acknowledged, certain”.* [In a footnote: No confusion arises between “weak presents” and similarly formed causatives since where the forms coalesce so do the senses: ortanwa < órt(a) “rise”, ortanwa < ortā́ “raise” = “having risen on high/upraised on high” = “exalted”] With a {past >>} perfect stem -nwa forms the perf. part. passive. This is not used as part of verbal system (Quenya Verbal System, late 1940s, PE22/106).@@ -190972,7 +191262,7 @@ Where the base was verbal a strong form without present affix frequently appeare
I think all these forms can coexist, however, with slightly different connotations. In particular, with -nwa having a specific “perfective” sense of a completed action or process, and being used only adjectivally, not participially.
]]>Forming the plural: Quenya has two general plural suffixes: -i used after consonantal nouns and -r used after (most) vocalic nouns. Of the two plural noun suffixes, the i-plural is the most ancient:
Plural. The most used sign was ī appearing especially between the stem and other affixes, but also finally in the uninflected or “acc.” pl. form (PE21/56, Primitive Quendian Final Consonants, 1936).@@ -192786,7 +193076,7 @@ Where the base was verbal a strong form without present affix frequently appeare
This was not the only function of the “possessive” case. It was sometimes used in adjective formation, and this was its original function. For example, Eruva can serve as a possessive “God’s” but it also means “divine” (VT44/18). Thus the “possessive” also has an attributive function: alcar Oroméva “Orome’s glory” indicates this glory that is a permanent attribute Orome, whereas alcar Oromeo “glory of Orome” would indicate glory originating from Orome in a specific moment only. Genitive aran Eldaron would have the connotation “king of the Elves, the one among the Elves who is king” whereas aran Eldava would mean “Elvish king, the king who is Elvish” (WJ/369, 407).
Tolkien discussed the use of the possessive suffix in his Quendi and Eldar essay from around 1960, where he labeled it the “possessive-adjectival” case. The relevant quote (WJ/368-369) appears in full in the entry on the genitive. Tolkien also discussed its original function in Common Eldarin: Noun Structure from the early 1950s:
@@ -193569,7 +193859,7 @@ Where the base was verbal a strong form without present affix frequently appeareForms marked with a * are unattested in the 1950s and 60s, though as noted above, forms like lassíva and atanúva appeared in the 1920s and 30s.
As the chart above indicates, the possessive suffix would often trigger prosodic lengthening, and did so universally when added to trisyllabic or longer nouns ending in two light syllable such as -ie: Eldaliéva (S/59), tyaliéva (PE21/80), Oroméva (WJ/368). The possessive suffix was abnormal in that it sometimes triggered prosodic lengthening even for nouns with only two syllables: táríva (PE17/76; PE21/14), Ulmóva (PE19/60; PE21/80), Huinéva (Ety/PHUY). There are more examples of disyllabic possessives where lengthening did not happen (ciryava). One possible explanation appears in notes from the 1930s:
@@ -193625,7 +193915,7 @@ kándāvā̀The independent forms seem to be the independent pronouns + -nya, so that other forms would be *lyenya “your (polite)”, *venya “our (inclusive)”, etc. The forms ninya and menya match emphatic possessive forms from the Early Qenya Grammar (PE14/54), so perhaps these independent possessives were also emphatic in Tolkien’s later writing. Where they appear, they are used as adjectives, and in some examples they are declined like adjectives to agree in number with the noun: menye rohtar “*our trespasses” (VT43/19).
It has also become established Neo-Quenya practice to allow the use of these long possessives as pronouns, equivalent to English “mine, yours, theirs” and so forth: sina ninya, tana lyenya “this is mine, that is yours”. I believe this usage was first suggested in Helge Fauskanger’s Quenya Course (HFQC/Lesson 19). In this usage, presumably the possessive pronouns would be declined like nouns instead of adjectives.
+There were a different set of independent possessive pronouns in the Quenya Verbal System of 1948:
+Conceptual Development: There was a full possessive pronoun paradigm in the Early Qenya Grammar (EQG) from the 1920s, but they were prefixes instead of suffixes. Tolkien also gave a set of “emphatic” (longer) possessive adjectives, which functioned as adjectives following the noun (PE14/54):
1sg. | 2a-sg. | 2b-sg. | 3sg. | 1a-pl. | 1b-pl. | 2pl. | 3pl. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[1] PE17/57 | -n(ye) | -tye | -lye | -s(te) | -mme | -lme | -lde/-lle | -nte |
[2] PE17/75 | -n(ye) | -t(ye) | -l(ye) | -s | -mme | -lme | -lle | -lte |
[3] VT49/16 | -n(ye) | -tye | -l(ye) | -s | -lme | -lwe | -lde | -lte |
[4] VT49/51 | -n(ye) | -tye | -l(ye) | -s(e) | -lme | -lve | -lde | -lte |
[1] PE17/190 | -n(ye) | — | -l(ye) | -s | -mme | -lme | -lde/-lle | -lte/-nte |
[2] PE17/57 | -n(ye) | -tye | -lye | -s(te) | -mme | -lme | -lde/-lle | -nte |
[3] PE17/132 | -n(ye) | — | -l(ye) | -s(se) | -mbe | -lme | -lle | -nte |
[4] PE17/75 | -n(ye) | -t(ye) | -l(ye) | -s | -mme | -lme | -lle | -lte |
[5] VT49/16 | -n(ye) | -tye | -l(ye) | -s | -lme | -lwe | -lde | -lte |
[6] VT49/51 | -n(ye) | -tye | -l(ye) | -s(e) | -lme | -lve | -lde | -lte |
The first two paradigms [1] and [2] were composed before the second edition of The Lord of the Rings was published, the last two [3] and [4] were composed after. One notable change between the two editions is Frodo’s greeting to Gildor, “a star shines on the hour of our [inclusive] meeting”:
+Paradigms [2-3] also mention an “honorific” suffix -tar that seems to have displaced polite -lye, which itself seems to have become familiar after -tye became archaic (this idea seems to have been abandoned by 1964 after which -tye was restored). The first four paradigms [1-4] were composed before the second edition of The Lord of the Rings was published, the last two [5-6] were composed after. One notable change between the two editions is Frodo’s greeting to Gildor, “a star shines on the hour of our [inclusive] meeting”:
The conditional or subjunctive. This is not expressed inflectionally but by particles, nai and {ke >>} ki, of which nai represents remoter possibility (“might”), ki (nearer) “may” ... “If” is expressed by mai (Early Qenya Grammar, 1920s, PE14/59).@@ -214626,7 +214962,7 @@ The particles and conjunctions chiefly used in Quenya were qe “if”; <
Indeclinable i: Most attested relative clauses are formed with the pronoun i:
@@ -214697,14 +215033,14 @@ The particles and conjunctions chiefly used in Quenya were qe “if”; <In the prior version of this sentence, the relative pronoun was yá with long á (VT43/27), so it is possible that rather than relative pronoun ya “what”, this was the subordinate conjunction yá “when” (lit. “when we die”), also seen in yá hríve mene, ringa ná “when winter comes, it is cold” (VT49/23). It seems likely that short ya is used as a (neuter) relative pronoun, whereas long yá functions as subordinate conjunction “when” vs. the more generic subordinate conjunction i “that”.
-In addition to neuter ya, Quenya also has a personal/animate relative pronoun ye “who(m)” which can likewise be inflected into noun cases: genitive yeo, allative yenna, ablative yello (VT47/21). Compare inanimate ya “what”/animate ye “who” with inanimate sa “it”/animate se “he, she”. Interestingly, this “inflectable who” ye had a plural form of i:
+In addition to neuter ya, Quenya also has a personal/animate relative pronoun ye “who(m)” which can likewise be inflected into noun cases: genitive yeo, allative yenna, ablative yello (VT47/21). Compare inanimate ya “what”/animate ye “who” with inanimate sa “it”/animate se “he, she”. Note that ya may still be applied to persons, as in the examples above, so it seems ye is optional and can be used to emphasize that the referent is a person. Interestingly, this “inflectable who” ye had a plural form of i:
who rel. per[sonal] ye, pl. i-
that rel. imp[personal] ya
yenna leltanelyes “to which [?whom] you sent him”
yeo / yello / ion / illon camnelyes “from whom you received it” (VT47/21).
This plural form of ye may have influenced the function of the indeclinable relative pronoun i. Unlike indeclinable i, both ya and ye are inflected for noun case and number. Indeed, where they appear in example sentences from Tolkien’s later writing, they are inflected for noun case (not so in Early Qenya, see below). This may be the distinction between indeclinable i and declinable ya/ye: the latter are used where case inflection is required.
+Unlike indeclinable i, both ya and ye are inflected for noun case and number. Indeed, where they appear in example sentences from Tolkien’s later writing, they are always inflected for noun case (not so in Early Qenya, see below). This may be the distinction between indeclinable i and declinable ya/ye: the latter are used where case inflection is required. Tolkien does not give a plural form of ya, but it might be *yai; compare ta vs. tai (VT49/32). However, with adverbial cases (-sse, -nna, -llo) it seems the plural suffix is added directly to ya: ya-ssen tintilar i eleni “wherein the stars tremble”, referring to the vaults (telumar) of Varda.
Origins of ya and i: Tolkien discussed the origins of ya in notes associated with Galadriel’s song (NGS) written in the late 1950s or early 1960s:
ya-, used in Quenya as stem of relatives, being originally a demonstrative referring back to something behind, or previous in time (PE17/66).
Indeed, the root ᴹ√YA appears in The Etymologies from the 1930s with the gloss “there, over there; (of time) back, ago”, and is also the basis for words like yára “old”. As a relative pronoun, it may have originally meant “that thing previously referred to”. The use of ya as a relative pronoun dates all the way back to the Early Quenya Grammar (EQG) of the 1920s, though at this earlier stage it was indeclinable:
@@ -214721,7 +215057,7 @@ that rel. imp[personal] yaIf the subordinate clause follows the main clause, the tense of the subordinate verb is relative to that of the main verb so: istan i tulis “I know that he comes” (aorist/aorist) and istan i túles “I know that he came” (aorist/past) but sinten i tulis “I knew that he came” (past/aorist) and sinten i túles “I knew that he had come” (past/past), where in the last example the past of the subordinate clause is further in the past than the main clause, equivalent to English’s use of the pluperfect.
It is less clear what would happen if the subordinate clause preceded the main clause. My intuition is that in that circumstance, the subordinate clause would be declined into the tense of the time frame under discussion, not relative to the main clause: i atan i túle náne hlaiwa “the man who came was sick” (past/past) vs. i atan i utúliéne náne hlaiwa “the man who had come was sick” (pluperfect/past).
This assumption is based on Tolkien’s phrasing: “the tense inside the clause depends on that of the first verb, the time of which becomes the present of the second verb” (PE22/118), which seem to imply that the word order matters. The examples given in QVS are also analogous to the behavior of the infinitive, which likewise derives its tense from the main verb and must follow it. However, it is possible my assumption is wrong, and that the tense in the subordinate clause is always relative to the main clause and thus remains indeterminate until the main clause is expressed.
]]>The meaning of the Quenya word was not quite the same, however. It was not used for a “soul” (which was ) or a disembodied spirit (which was ). Tolkien said:
Eldar did not confound ordinary “breath” of the lungs with “spirit” ... the Eldar held that “spirits”, the more as they had native power, could emit their influence to make contact with or act upon things exterior to themselves: primarily on upon other spirits, or other incarnate persons (via the fëar), but also in the case of great spirits (such as the Valar or greater Maiar) directly upon physical things without the mediacy of bodies normally necessary in the case of fairondi or incarnates. To describe this, they used (but by deliberate symbolism taken e.g. from such cases as their breathing upon a cold or frosted surface, which was then melted) the √THŪ [“breath”] ... Hence [primitive Eldarin] thū́lē “blowing forth” was used = “spirit” in this special sense: the emission of power (of will or desire) from a spirit (PE17/124).-
Thus súlë was used metaphorically as “spirit” in the sense of the expression of a spirit’s power or will upon the world, alongside its more ordinary meaning as “breath”.
+Thus súlë was used metaphorically as “spirit” in the sense of the movement of a spirit’s power or will upon the world, alongside its more ordinary meaning as “breath”.
Conceptual Development: This word first appeared in The Etymologies from the 1930s, already with the meaning and etymology given above (Ety/THŪ). Its appearance in compounds like “March” (LotR/1110) and “Breather” (S/26, PE21/85) imply a stem form of súli-, but in one place it was given a primitive form ✶, which implies a stem form of súle-. The prefixal form súli- was due to blending with primitive ✶, the basis of S. “wind” (NM/237).
There are cases where, especially in his earlier writing, Tolkien used súle for “spirit” in a more traditional sense, as in the phrase “longing frets the spirit” (PE22/119). Thus it may be that Tolkien originally conceived of a semantic evolution for súle closer to Greek πνεῦμα, before differentiating it more clearly as described above.
]]>The talat-stem verbs are rare, since most primitive verbal roots were biconsonantal (√KAT). The best known verb in this class is talta- “to slip, slide down, fall”, and Tolkien generally used this verb as the example of inflections for this class (PE17/186; PE22/164). In “modern” Quenya this verb’s conjugation is:
Unlike the formatives whose stems always ended in ya or ta, the talat-stems could have a variety of consonant clusters, resulting in some peculiar past tenses: carpa- → past carampe (PE17/126) or [ᴹQ.] sulpa- → past sulumpe (PE22/115). These abnormal inflections were generally reformed to match weak conjugations, for example past sulumpe became sulpane. Thus the talat-stems probably disappeared as a distinct verb class, either merging with the conjugations of half-strong verbs, or abandoning all irregularities to become ordinary weak verbs.
Conceptual Development: Triconsonantal roots were even rarer in the 1910s and 1920s than they were in Tolkien’s later writing, so finding verbs that might be of this class in the Early Period is very difficult. However, the verb ᴹQ. talta- < ᴹ√TALAT did appear in The Etymologies from the 1930s, and Tolkien explicitly mentioned the existence of talat-stem verbs in Quendian & Common Eldarin Verbal Structure in 1940s (PE22/98). He described them in more detail in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) written shortly afterwards, lumping them together with the half-strong formative verbs (PE22/113). As he described their conjugations in QVS, the talat-stems were essentially identical to the formatives except that they had a greater tendency to adopt weak past tenses (PE22/114-115).
One factor in the preservation of talat-stem conjugations was its use in one of the names for Númenor: Atalantë “Downfallen” (S/281). Tolkien was clearly pleased that this name resembled “Atlantis”, and his retention of the nasal-infixed past tense talante for talta- was almost certainly motivated in part by his desire to retain this name.
]]>Conceptual Development: In Lord of the Rings drafts, Tolkien first gave this name as ᴹQ. “Trotter” >> Tarakon >> Tarantar, before settling on the final form Telkontar >> Telcontar (WR/390, 395).
]]>Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, ᴱQ. telu was a noun meaning “end, close” (QL/91). In the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa it was glossed “end (fate)” (PME/91).
+Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use this element only in compounds since it is not clear what its independent singular or plural forms would be (telo, telwi?). For the ordinary adjective, I’d use métima or telda.
]]>Conceptual Development: In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien instead had ᴹQ. tavar “wood (material)” derived from primitive ᴹ✶tawar of the same meaning, from the extended root ᴹ√TÁWAR “wood, forest” (Ety/TÁWAR). In this earlier conception, the awa became ava rather than reducing to oa because the initial a was stressed. Stress alone was probably not enough to preserve ancient áwa in Tolkien’s later conception of the language’s phonetic development.
]]>Conceptual Development: This name dates back to the earliest Lost Tales (LT1/66), and ᴱQ. appeared in the Qenya Lexicon as a derivative of the root ᴱ√ alongside words meaning “steady, firm” and “to establish” (QL/95, LT1A/Tulkas). This name had essentially the same meaning in The Etymologies from the 1930s, where ᴹQ. appeared as an derivative of the same root ᴹ√, from primitive ᴹ✶ (Ety/TULUK). The idea that it was an adaptation of a Valarin name did not emerge until the Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60 (WJ/399).
In The Etymologies, Tolkien gave the (ᴹQ) form of this name as Tulkassen, implying a stem form Tulkass-. This stem form doesn’t same to fit its later derivation from Val. Tulukhastāz, however.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I think it is preferable to use the word Q. toa for “wood (material)”.
]]>Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I think it is preferable to use the word Q. töa for “wood (material)”.
]]> +u-verbs. The u seems to have been in Eldarin a “phonetic inflexion”: that is, it had no significance for the defining of tense, mode, or aspect, but served to complete the phonetic content of the word, which, as far as the particular verb went, was incomplete without it. The u-addition was thus normally (or very frequently) present throughout the conjugation. Thus u-addition appears most often after the sonants, l, r, n, m: as tolu, khamu, and especially after basic sundómar e, i: as sedu, liru, siru (beside sirya), kheru, kelu, etc. It most often appears in intransitive verbs as kelu “well up”, but that is not due to the force of the affix: since there are old examples of transitive verbs such as telu “roof in”. In many cases the u-verbs have an inceptive sense, as in: sedu “go to rest”, kelu “well forth, begin to flow”, tolu “stand up”, khamu “sit down”; a similar sense is often seen in the verbs showing affixes lu, ru, nu: as koiru “come to life” (PE22/135).
See the entry on inceptive verbs for a more detailed discussion of the occasional inceptive aspect of u-verbs, along with other inceptive formations.
@@ -240186,7 +240521,7 @@ cause to smoke; smoke at pipe” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, deriv* This perfect is based on the perfect etekélie of [ᴹQ.] ehtelu- “to bubble up” (PE22/103). See also the Neo-Quenya section below.
Isolated examples in later writing indicate this paradigm mostly remains valid in the 1950s and 60s: lirule 2nd-sg aorist of liru- “sing” (PE22/138), nurrua present of nurru- “mumble” (MC/222), indune past of indu- “to will, do on purpose” (PE22/165). The inflection of u-verbs was somewhat different when the stem consonant was a velar [k]. In the aorist and present tenses, the u lost its vocalic character and combined with the preceding [k] to become [kw] (qu), as in:
Thus Q seru- “settle on, sit or lie down, come to rest on”; hamu- “sit down, take a seat”; tolu “stand up, get up, leave one’s seat”. (ek)koiru “come to life”; tuilu “bud, open (of flowers and leaves)”, etc. (PE22/114).
These notes indicate the sometimes-inceptive nature of u-verbs. QVS is also the source of the most complete conjugational paradigm of u-verbs, as discussed above. In QVS Tolkien mentioned u-verbs sometimes had strong past tenses derived directly from the root (PE22/117), but this does not seem to be the norm. The last detailed discussion of u-verbs in the published corpus appears in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) from the 1950s (see the quote above), but individual u-verbs continued to appear in the 1960s.
Neo-Quenya: Absent more information, I would assume that the 1940s conjugational paradigm remains valid for u-verbs. It mostly remains phonologically plausible. The only possible exception is the perfect form ilírie which (a) looks too much like a basic verb and (b) contradicts the statement that “the u-addition was thus normally (or very frequently) present throughout the conjugation” (EVS2, 1950s, PE22/135). I would not be surprised to see distinctive u-verb perfect forms like ilíruye or ilírwie appear in some future publication resembling the past form kelwie from the 1920s, or perhaps weak perfects like ilirunie. Unless and until such forms are published, though, I’d stick with the attested pattern.
]]>-ima: Probably the best known of the verbal adjective suffixes, -ima is used to express possibility, and is roughly equivalent to English “-able, -ible”: cen- “see” → cénima “visible, able to be seen”. Tolkien discussed this suffix in several places, including the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) of the late 1940s, Common Eldarin: Verb Structures (EVS2) of the early 1950s and Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) written in 1969:
Adjectives expressing possibility: “able to be done”, like “-able, ible”, are formed with -imā, always in simple verbs preceded by a stem strengthened, either by doubling of the final base medial (usual in case of p, t, k), or by lengthening of base vowel, or by nasal intrusion. Thus: mattima “edible”; qettima “utterable”, alqettima “unutterable”; alkárima “impossible to make”; kénima “visible”; alistima “unknowable, secret”. Verbs in -ā drop this: alfárima “impossible to pursue”. Those in u usually keep it: lī̆ruima “able to be sung”. Weak verbs show ălima [from ´ālimā́]: ortalima “able to be raised”; alaniñkwitálima “that cannot be made white (again)”. So istalima “knowable, ascertainable” (QVS, PE22/110).@@ -245759,7 +246057,7 @@ enfolding the world within the Ilurambar”, a derivative of ᴹ√Ex. of ima. tírima “able to be watched, observable”; kénima “visible”; kárima, ”feasible, possible (to do)”, ankárima “very doable, easy”; mátima “edible”; nótima “countable, limited in number (weight or measure)” ... kólima “bearable, light (of burdens and things comparable, troubles, labour, afflictions)”; púlima “pourable, liquid”; yúlima “drinkable”; túvima “discoverable”; kúvima “concealable”. These adjectives were made chiefly from transitive verbal stems (LVS, PE22/155).
All these documents agree on the essential meaning of -ima, but Tolkien’s ideas for how these adjectives were formed seems to have evolved over time. In QVS, the stem of basic verbs was “strengthened” in some way via either vowel lengthening or doubling the final consonant (mattima). In EVS2 consonant doubling seems to be abandoned, but a variant suffix -tima was sometimes used with basic verb (mat+timā > mastima). In LVS vowel lengthening seems to be the only mechanism for strengthening the stem (mátima).
In QVS u-verbs added the suffix -ima directly to the stem (líruima “singable”) but the final a was replaced in half-strong and a-verbs like istima “knowable” and fárima “pursuable”, with vowel lengthening if possible. In QVS transitive and weak verbs use the suffix -lima (ortalima “raisable”) but in LVS it seems the extra l was abandoned and the result was forms like tultaima “fetchable” (PE22/156).
-Mostly -ima “-able” is added to transitive verbs, and had a passive sense, but in EVS2 Tolkien said it could be added to intransitive verbs as well where it took on the sense of “able to” as in cálima “able to shine”. However, in LVS Tolkien clarified that there was a separate adjective suffix -ima that did not involve lengthening of the stem vowel, and served to form more generic adjectives:
+Mostly -ima “-able” is added to transitive verbs, and had a passive sense, but in EVS2 Tolkien said it could be added to intransitive verbs as well where it took on the sense of “able to” as in cálima “able to shine”. However, in LVS Tolkien clarified that there was a separate adjective suffix -ima that did not involve lengthening of the base vowel, and served to form more generic adjectives:
-ima adjs. Only the adjs. in -ima found with long stem vowel were adjs. of possibility. -ima was frequently used with stems (verbal, adj[ectival] or nominal) with a short vowel, and the sense possessing to a high degree (at all times & by nature) the property mention[ed]. So kalima “luminous” (by nature always), vanima “beautiful, norima “running, swiftly a course[?]”, kelima “fluent”, istima “wise (in sense of knowing much), knowledgeable, very well informed”, melima “loving, very affectionate” — but lamélima “unlovable” (PE22/156).
Since the form in The Lord of the Rings was calima with short ă (LotR/720), it seems Tolkien abandoned the idea that such adjectives were connected to -ima “-able”. Indeed, the use of -ima as a general adjective suffix dates all the way back to Early Qenya and probably predates its use as a suffix of possibility: ᴱQ. korima “round”, ᴱQ. oilima “last”, ᴱQ. qolima “sickly, ailing”, etc.
-ite: The suffix -ite was used to describe a habit or intrinsic characteristic related to a verbal action such as: tirila “watching (something)” vs. tiríte “watchful, vigilant”; carila “doing, making (something)” vs. caraite “active, busy”.
@@ -245781,7 +246079,7 @@ enfolding the world within the Ilurambar”, a derivative of ᴹ√Adjectives in ū̆la (in which the ū̆ is possibly related to the ū̆ seen in the futures) express likelihood, aptitude: similar to Latin “-āx”: nyárula “apt to talk, or relate”; kúvula “flexible, pliant” (QVS, PE22/111).ū̆lā usually expressed likelihood or aptitude (in what would be the subject of the verb): matulā “edacious” (EVS2, PE22/137).
Distinguishing between -ite and -ula is a bit tricky, especially since -ula is not described in LVS, but it seems -ite refers to habitual (current or previous) activity as opposed to -ula that refers to potential (future) activity. In practice there is probably a fair about of ambiguity between the various suffixes, especially with intransitive verbs: “flexible” was given as both kúvula and kúvima (from the verb kuv- “bow”).
-In QVS it seems that -ula requires lengthening of the stem vowel, much like -ima. This seems not be true in the one example given in EVS2, but that may well be an archaic (Common Eldarin) form. For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would assume -ula follows rules similar to -ima.
]]>In QVS it seems that -ula requires lengthening of the base vowel, much like -ima. This seems not be true in the one example given in EVS2, but that may well be an archaic (Common Eldarin) form. For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would assume -ula follows rules similar to -ima.
]]>Thus: polin kare sa “I am physically able to do that”, istan kare sa “I know how to do that”, lertan kare sa “I am free to do that” (nothing prevents me from doing that); all of these can be expressed in English by “I can do that”. The closest Quenya comes to generic “I can” is the impersonal verb ek- “to have a chance of”. This verb cannot have an explicit subject, and the purported subject is given in the dative. Thus eke nin kare sa = “I can do it”, more literally “*there is an opportunity for me to do that, it is possible for me to that” (VT49/20). Thus eke is an expression of possibility.
-The impersonal verb eke is derived from the root √KE/EKE “it is open; may; have chance, opportunity or permission”, and thus may have originally indicated that the purported subject had the option of performing the action (“it is open to me”) without indicating whether or not they would. This verb is also connected to the participle of uncertainty cé “may be” (PE22/154, 158), so it could also be a pure expression of possibility. The impersonal verb can be put into the future tense to indicate a remoter, future possibility: ekuva nin kare sa noa = “I may do that tomorrow, I have a chance of doing that” (VT49/20), literally “*there will be an opportunity for me to do that tomorrow”.
+The impersonal verb eke is derived from the root √KE/EKE “it is open; may; have chance, opportunity or permission”, and thus may have originally indicated that the purported subject had the option of performing the action (“it is open to me”) without indicating whether or not they would. This verb is also connected to the participle of uncertainty cé “may be” (PE22/154, 158), so it could also be a pure expression of possibility. The impersonal verb can be put into the future tense to indicate a remoter, future possibility: ekuva nin kare sa noa = “I may do that tomorrow, I have a chance of doing that” (VT49/20), literally “*there will be an opportunity for me to do that tomorrow”.
It is not clear how obligation (“I must, I need to”) is expressed in Quenya. One possibility is that the verb ᴹQ. mauya- “compel” can be used impersonally to express necessity, based on the gloss of the primitive verb, ᴹ✶mauy- “need (impersonal)” (Ety/MBAW). Its Noldorin [proto-Sindarin] equivalent is impersonal N. bui which is glossed “I must”, lending weight to this theory. If true, then “I must do that” could be mauya nin kare sa, literally “[it] compels for me to do that”, modeled after ore nin karitas “I feel an urge to do it” (VT41/13), lit. “[it] urges for me to do it”.
To summarize, the way Quenya expresses the following English modal verbs seems to be:
Note that lá mauya nin care sa would mean “I am not required to do that”. To reverse the sentiment (“I must not do that”), you might say ava nin care sa, literally “[it] forbids for me to do that”. This is likewise hypothetical, since it isn’t clear whether the verb ava- “refuse, forbid” can be used impersonally. It is also possible that a more explicit expression of permission might use an impersonal formation with the verb ᴹQ. lav- “permit, allow”, such as lave nin care sa “it is permitted for me to do that”, but this is also hypothetical.
]]>Abstract noun endings: Quenya had a variety of abstract noun endings, and these could also be used with verbs: -ie, -ve, -le, -me and -re. Of these, only -ie (most gerunds) and -ve (gerunds of verb stems ending in a vowel) are part of the conjugational system, but the other suffixes were sometimes used to form nouns from verbal roots. In Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) written in the early 1950s Tolkien said:
-lē, rē, mē and extended ălē, ărē, umē. These like the above are elaborations of the “abstract” ending e. They were widely used in Eldarin, but seldom became regular conjugational elements. In Q. rē, ărē (or dissimilated after r > lē, ale) was so frequent as to be virtually formable at will from any verbal stem. NB. These endings may disregard verbal formative @@ -245901,16 +246199,16 @@ or tense-endings. So Q fărăle “hunting” < phár-alē:Suffix. -mā “instrument”, yulma “a cup for drinking” ... -da “noun result of action”, yulda “a draught, the amount drunk” (PE17/106).The principal forms were the primitive simple form PE *mbar(a) > uninflected mbār, inflected mbăr-; and the derivative form *mbardā. Made with the suffix -dā chiefly used in “passive” sense: indicating resulting products of an action; as yul-da “what is drunk, a draught” (PE17/106).Compared to -ma, the suffix -da was frequently obscured by sound changes like zd > st. Thus there may not have been enough clear remnants of this suffix for it to have remained productive. Nevertheless, -da seems to be the passive (product) equivalent to active (instrumental) -ma, so it is worth noting.
]]>
One quick item worth covering here: if the subject of a phrase is not a pronominal subject suffix, then the verb must be declined to agree in number with the subject, using the suffix -r (plural) or -t (dual). Thus alda tarne “a tree stood”, aldar tarner “trees stood”, aldu tarnet “two trees stood”. This topic is addressed in more detail in the entry on verb inflections.
]]>Conceptual Development: The notion of the “lower air” as a region dates all the way back to the earliest Lost Tales, where the innermost layer of air was called ᴱQ. Vilna (LT1/65). However, in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, the term was ᴱQ. Vilya “air (lower)” as a derivative of the early root ᴱ√VILI (QL/101). The word vilya “lower air” appeared English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s but was deleted (PE15/68), and this term appeared as both the singular “air” and plural “airs” in version of Nieninqe and its drafts circa 1930: yan/yar i vilya(r) anta miqilis “to whom the air(s) give kisses” (MC/215; PE16/90, 92).
In the Ambarkanta of the early 1930s, the lower air was {Wilwa >>} Vista (SM/236, 240 note #1), but it was Wilwa again in the earliest tales of Númenor from the 1930s (LR/12) and was ᴹQ. {vilwa >>} wilma in The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√WIL “fly, float in air” (Ety/WIL). Q. vilya “air, sky” in Appendix E seems to be the last iteration in this chain.
@@ -248073,7 +248372,7 @@ or tense-endings. So Q fărăle “hunting” < phár-alē:Conceivably these nouns might use stems ending in w with consonantal-like inflections for other noun cases: dative *rusquen “for a fox”, ablative *angwello, “from snake”. But I think it is safer to assume the later irregularities of these nouns were limited to plural forms, and other noun cases were declined like ordinary vocalic nouns: *ruscun “for a fox”, *angullo “from a snake”.
]]>There are two groups of verbs that most frequently make use of weak conjugations:
Neo-Quenya: Until recently, many Neo-Quenya authors treated all verbs ending in a as part of a single large class of verbs: the derived or “a-stem” verbs. Most older Neo-Quenya courses conjugated this unified class more or less like weak verbs as described above. Variations were generally assumed to be either irregular verbs or conceptual vacillations. The publication of PE22 in 2015 overturned our understanding of Quenya derived verbs, however, revealing that there were a lot more verb classes in Quenya than originally thought. Even now things are complicated because it is often difficult to determine precisely which class a given verb belongs to.
I recommended treating the weak conjugations above as the “default” conjugation for verbs whose stems end in -a, using other conjugations only where they are known, most notably for half-strong verbs. The main variation seems to be the 1969 -úva or -auva futures for causative verbs, as mentioned above. I recommend limiting these -auva futures to causative verbs. However, in the late 1960s Tolkien considered having causative perfects conjugated like most other derived verbs so that utultanie >> utultie. I do recommend adopting this change, since it makes perfects more regular. As noted above, derivative verbs (“true weak” verbs) based nouns and adjectives seem to always have weak perfects like etengwanie “has read”, perhaps to make augment-less perfects more distinct from gerunds (tengwie “reading”).
To summarize, both derivative and causative verbs have the same conjugations, except causatives may use simple perfects like utultie and always use futures like tultauva, versus “true weak” verbs which have weak perfects like ehentanie and futures like hentuva.
]]>In this system, the predicate noun or adjective matches the subject in number: ti “they”, me “we” vs. elidh “elves”, belig “mighty (beleg-plural)”. However, it is generally believed that a predicate adjective is not lenited. Among other things, this helps you distinguish a “to be” statement from an adjective modifying a noun via its lack of mutation: i edhel bain “the elf [is] beautiful” vs. i edhel vain “the beautiful elf”. Thorsten Renk suggested this lack of mutation in his book Pedin Edhellen: a Sindarin Course (2010, PESC/101), and Fiona Jallings detailed a similar system in her book A Fan’s Guide to Neo-Sindarin (2017, FGNS/68-69).
Jallings goes on to suggest that a noun would undergo lenition in a “to be” statement, so it could be distinguished from an juxtapositional genitive: *i aran vaethor “the king [is] a warrior” vs. i aran maethor “the king of warrior”. However, this strikes me as unlikely; I can see no reason why a noun would be lenited in a “to be” expression but an adjective would not be. I also think there would rarely be any confusion: Boromir maethor “Boromir [is] a warrior” would almost certainly not be confused for “Boromir of a warrior”, which makes no sense.
+A particularly elegant solution is invert the “to be” statement entirely. We know that in Common Eldarin, it was possible to say both “the elf [is] beautiful” and “beautiful [is] the elf” (PE22/124), and it seems likely this inversion is possible in Sindarin as well. The statement bain i edhel is completely unambiguous in Sindarin, and also works for adjectives that cannot be lenited: lim i edhel “swift [is] the elf” vs. (ambiguous) i edhel lim, which could mean either “the elf [is] swift” or “the swift elf”. The (Noldorin) phrase lheben teil brann i annon “five foot high [is] the door” seems to be an example of this inverted syntax.
Finally, it seems the Sindarin verb na- “to be” might not be inflected into the future or past. Based on the example above from the Túrin Wrapper (VT50/23), there might be a distinct future copula tho (or perhaps thaw) “will be”, probably derived from primitive ✶thā “then, next” (PE22/97, 131), so that “Elrond will be here” might be Elrond tho hí. We don’t know what the past copula would be in Sindarin, but (assuming it exists at all) it might be based on the ancient past particle ✶nē “was; then, ago” (PE22/96, 131), so perhaps S. *nî “was” as in: Elrond nî ennas “Elrond was there”. I suspect these would be inflected with pronominal suffixes: thon hí, nîn ennas “I will be here, I was there”.
Conceptual Development: The Gnomish language of the 1910s did use na- as the verb “to be”, and it did not omit the copula with the same frequency as Sindarin:
Neo-Sindarin: To summarize, not much can be said for certain about “to be” statement in Sindarin, but I recommend the following for Neo-Sindarin writing:
aþa, aþon etc. could still be used with ellipse of the verb stem, as e.g. in linnathol? “will you sing (please)”, answer aþon “I will”. Apart from this athon “yes, I will” (or in plur. athof, athab) the verb atha- was no longer free (PE22/167).
However, the 1950s notion of tho as a future copula may not be compatible with Tolkien’s 1969 notes on the Sindarin future tense, where he said -atha indicated the intention to perform a future action rather than being the simple statement of the future (PE22/167). In those notes the simple future was instead formed with an auxiliary verb tol- “to come” (PE22/168).
Alternately, it may be that the copula is simply omitted from past and future “to be” statements and the tense is deduced from context. This is the wide-spread assumption among Neo-Sindarin writers, with no contradictory evidence prior to the publication of the Túrin Wrapper. On the other hand, in his book Gateway to Sindarin David Salo suggested that na- might be a fully inflected verb with a past, present and future (GS/121-122), so just about every possible system has been suggested at one point or another (Salo’s system is no longer favored by Neo-Sindarin writers).
-The above means the most common use of na- is in imperative statements beginning with no. It is also a common assumption that *naw is the word for “yes” in (Neo) Sindarin, cognate of Q. ná, originally meaning “it is so”. Finally, another way to avoid the question of whether or not the predicate adjective is mutated is to put the predicate adjective first, as in belig in edain “mighty [are] the men”. I believe this is legitimate syntax in (Neo) Sindarin, and may feel less unnatural than using this word order in English. The (Noldorin) phrase lheben teil brann i annon “five foot high [is] the door” seems to be an example of this syntax.
]]> +The above means the most common use of na- is in imperative statements beginning with no. It is also a common assumption that *naw is the word for “yes” in (Neo) Sindarin, cognate of Q. ná, originally meaning “it is so”.
]]>Conceptual Development: In Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, his name was N. , of equally obscure meaning (LR/300).
]]>Conceptual Development: This village G. appeared in the earliest Lost Tales, though it was the earlier character Eriol who did the recording rather than Ælfwine (LT1/25). At this stage the name translated “Wood Home” and was a combination of “forest” and the lenited form of “village” (GL/64, 69) and sometimes appeared in the variant form G. (LT2/292). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, it was reinterpreted as noted above. In its final mention in Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, it was written Tathrobel (LR/203).
+Conceptual Development: This village G. appeared in the earliest Lost Tales, though it was the earlier character Eriol who did the recording rather than Ælfwine (LT1/25). At this stage the name translated “Wood Home” and was a combination of “forest” and the lenited form of “village” (GL/64, 69) and sometimes appeared in the variant form G. (LT2/292). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, it was reinterpreted as noted above. In its final mention in Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, it was written Tathrobel (LR/203); this last form might be Old English (SM/282 note #3).
This name was also used as an early name of (LR/412-3, WJ/157).
]]>This second quote indicates the dissimilation would also occur after [ð]. This sound change affected the feminine suffix , but not the class plural suffix , as seen in the plural form thennath above, as well as thoronath the class plural of “eagle” (S/243). Thus it seems this sound change was no longer active in Sindarin, and affected only older words, not newer inflections.
Conceptual Development: Words both beginning and ending with th are fairly common in Gnomish, so it seems unlikely this sound change applied to the earliest conceptual stages of the language. Whether it affected Noldorin is unclear; I have yet to find an example one way or the other.
-The úthaes example was pointed out to me by Lokyt and the thennes example by Fiona Jallings, which prompted me to write this entry.
]]>The úthaes example was pointed out to me by Elaran and the thennes example by Fiona Jallings, which prompted me to write this entry.
]]>Etymology: The history of Galadriel’s name is quite complex. Her given names were Q. and Q. , but her mother was Telerin. Later in life Galadriel adopted the Telerin name T. , which in Quenya was Q. (PM/346). This new name may have been due to the Telerin influence of her mother, or it may have been given to Galadriel by her husband, who may or may not have been a Telerin elf (see for discussion). She was given this name because of her long golden hair (Let/428). Like her older brothers, Galadriel journeyed to Beleriand to aid in the war against Morgoth, where her name Altáriel was adapted into Sindarin as Galadriel (PM/347, PE17/60).
+Etymology: The history of Galadriel’s name is quite complex. Her birth names were Q. and Q. , but her mother was Telerin. Later in life Galadriel adopted the Telerin name T. , which in Quenya was Q. (PM/346). This new name may have been due to the Telerin influence of her mother, or it may have been given to Galadriel by her husband, who may or may not have been a Telerin elf (see for discussion). She was given this name because of her long golden hair (Let/428). Like her older brothers, Galadriel journeyed to Beleriand to aid in the war against Morgoth, where her name Altáriel was adapted into Sindarin as Galadriel (PM/347, PE17/60).
Many years later, when Galadriel became ruler of Lórien, her Silvan-elf subjects associated her name with Nan. “tree”. Sometimes her Sindarin name was altered to Galadhriel (S. “tree”) to reflect this association (UT/267), but properly speaking her name had nothing to do with trees.
Conceptual Development: See the entry for the primitive form of her name, ✶, for a discussion of the conceptual developments in this name’s etymology, and N. for a discussion of earlier forms of this name.
]]>Note 3 forms of Genitive in Old Sindarin. [1] Without ending (in noun or article) follows an absolute noun and is then adjectival, implying any kind of relationship. So roch heryn = Lady(’s) horse, because connected with the lady (Arwen). [2] Purely possessive (singular) is -a, plural -on ... [3] Subject[ive] = ān/n, -āna. roch na-heryna, the horse of (the) Lady. Objective. dagnir an Glaurung, Slayer of Glaurung = he who slew Glaurung (from notes associated with The Lord of the Rings, around 1967, PE17/97).-
The suffixal genitive -a/-on was archaic and rarely seen, and indeed in the notes mentioned above Tolkien also wrote “DON’T have inflected genitive”, perhaps rejecting it even as an archaic form. However, the other two ways of forming genitives are well attested, using either (a) two nouns in juxtaposition with the genitival noun second or (b) a preposition such as na (indefinite) or en (definite).
+The suffixal genitive -a/-on was archaic and rarely seen, and indeed in the notes mentioned above Tolkien also wrote “DON’T have inflected genitive”, perhaps rejecting it even as an archaic form (but see below for a 1968 note where it seems to be restored: NM/355). However, the other two ways of forming genitives are well attested, using either (a) two nouns in juxtaposition with the genitival noun second or (b) a preposition such as na (indefinite) or en (definite).
Juxtapositional Genitives: Tolkien described the formation of a genitive via juxtaposition in several places:
The genitive when strictly so (esp. when implying identity, as “the city of Minas Tirith”) and not implying any movement of or from or partitive relation is expressed by mere juxtaposition (notes on The Lord of the Rings, late 1950s or early 1960s, PE17/25).
Since all final vowels disappeared in Sindarin, it cannot be determined whether or not this language had in the primitive period developed inflexional -ō. Its presence in Telerin of Aman makes its former presence in Sindarin probable. The placing of the genitive noun second in normal Sindarin is also probably derived from inflexional forms (Quendi and Eldar essay, around 1960, WJ/370).@@ -312972,10 +313241,10 @@ In The Etymologies of the 1930s, N. gaur was
Conceptual Development: In drafts of the Lord of the Rings appendices, her name was Gilrain (PM/196). In notes from the 1950s, he indicated the second element of her name was “smiling, gracious, sweet-faced” (PE17/182).
]]>Neo-Sindarin: Its Quenya cognate Q. roa had the revised meaning {“bear” >>} “dog”, so for purposes of Neo-Sindarin it is probably best to stick with [N.] brôg and ᴺS. medli [N. megli] as words for “bear”.
]]>Neo-Sindarin: Its Quenya cognate Q. roa had the revised meaning {“bear” >>} “dog”, so for purposes of Neo-Sindarin it is probably best to stick with [N.] brôg and ᴺS. medli [N. megli] as words for “bear”.
]]>A probably related form gwanwen “departed” appears in the Quendi and Eldar (Q&E) essay from 1959-60 (WJ/378). This could be an independant adjective, but could also be a passive participle of gwae- (or some variant of it), possibly a strengthened or elaborated form of gwanu/gwawn.
+The present tense form gwaen “I go” is especially peculiar. Compare this to the more regular present tenses cewin “I taste” < kawin(e) (PE22/152) and galon “I grow” < galān(e) (PE17/131). I think the likeliest explanation is that gwaen is derived from an ancient aorist form wa-i-nĭ, with ai becoming ae as was usual of Sindarin’s phonetic developments. If so, the presents of this verb would be based on √WA and the pasts based on √AW.
+A final twist is that in the note from DLN Tolkien mentions u-intrusion, a sound change parallel to the more common i-intrusion, whereby a final u moved before a preceding consonant. The forms awn and gwawn are thus the u-intruded results of anu and gwanu. This u-intrusion would not occur in forms with further suffixes, like anwen “I went”.
+Neo-Sindarin: How to handle this verb in the context of Neo-Sindarin is unclear. Given the extreme irregularity of this verb, it is tempting to discard it. Unfortunately, we have no other good Sindarin verbs for “to depart”. Furthermore, common verbs like “go” tend to be irregular in many languages (such as English as “go” vs. “went”), so it makes sense the same would be true of Sindarin. As such, I propose the following conjugation for this verb (hat tip to Gilruin for most of this paradigm; he suggested much better forms than my original ideas):
+Finally, this verb means “go” specifically in the sense “depart”, that is: “go away”. For “go (generally and in any direction)”, use the verb men-.
]]>Conceptual Development: This name first appeared as N. with a short o on the draft maps of the Lord of the Rings from the 1940s (TI/304, 312).
]]>Neo-Sindarin: I would retain this word as ᴺS. gwesg and would further assume it can be used as both an adjective “*weak” as well as an adverb “weakly”. It is not clear what its etymology would be in Tolkien’s later conception of the languages, however (< √WESEK?)
]]>Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I would update this word to ᴺS. gwimmam “whale”, a combination of gwing “foam” and [ᴺS.] bam “sheep”.
]]>Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I would update this word to ᴺS. gwimmaf “whale”, a combination of gwing “foam” and [ᴺS.] maf “sheep”.
]]> +Neo-Sindarin: The early root ᴱ√SḶPḶ became ᴹ√SALAP “lick up” in The Etymologies of the 1930s, so I would adapt this verb as ᴺS. hlab- from *s’lap-, but I would use it mainly with the sense “sup, sip” while for “lap up, suck” I’d use ᴺS. lavra-. I’d also assume a noun form ᴺS. hlab “a sip”, to justify the abnormal vocalization of the verb.
]]>In notes on The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, while discussing the river name S. Gwathló Tolkien said:
-The element -ló was also of Common Eldarin origin, derived from a base (s)log: in Common Eldarin sloga had been a word used for streams of a kind that were variable and liable to overflow their banks at seasons and cause floods when swollen by rains or melting snow; especially such as the Glanduin (described above) that had their sources in mountains and fell at first swiftly, but were halted in the lower lands and flats. *sloga became in Sindarin lhô; but was not in later times much used except in river or marsh names. The Quenya form would have been hloä (VT42/9).-
Tolkien rejected this etymology, however, replacing it with the following:
-Lô was derived from Common Eldarin base LOG “wet (and soft), soaked, swampy, etc.” The form *loga produced S. lô and T. loga; and also, from *logna, S. loen, T. logna “soaking wet, swamped”. But the stem in Quenya, owing to sound-changes which caused its derivatives to clash with other words, was little represented ... the Quenya form of S. lô would have been **loa, identical with Q. loa < *lawa “year”; the form of S. loen, T. logna would have been **lóna identical with [Q.] lóna “pool, mere” (VT42/10).-
This final etymology appears to be the last one Tolkien wrote on the topic; later in the same document he used the form lô in discussions of the river name S. Ringló (VT42/13-14). As for the meaning of the word, it seems it applied both to wide rivers with a tendency to flood their banks, as well as fenlands or wetlands in general.
-Conceptual Development: As an element in river names, -lo first appeared in the river names N. Gwathlo and N. Ringlo in Lord of the Rings drafts (TI/304; WR/287). G. lô “pool, lake” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s is possible precursor (GL/54).
-Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I prefer the pre-1968 form of the word lhô, as this is both more distinctive and also allows us to salvage Q. hloa of similar meaning.
]]>Neo-Sindarin: The early root ᴱ√SḶPḶ became ᴹ√SALAP “lick up” in The Etymologies of the 1930s, so I would adapt this verb as ᴺS. lhab- from *s’lap-, but I would use it mainly with the sense “sup, sip” while for “lap up, suck” I’d use ᴺS. lavra-. I’d also assume a noun form ᴺS. lhab “a sip”, to justify the abnormal vocalization of the verb.
]]>Conceptual Development: This name appears to be a variation on earlier G. “Keen-sight”.
]]>Hammond and Scull interpreted the phrase in the footnote mentioned above. An analysis of the phrase also appears in an article by Didier Willis titled “Une phrase elfique dans « J. R. R. Tolkien, Artist & Illustrator »” () and also in David Salo’s A Gateway to Sindarin (/216-7). These three analyses are very close and form the basis for the version presented here.
Tolkien gave two translations of the phrase in the sketch. There is a Modern English translation “five foot high the door and three may walk abreast”, written in runes. There is also an Old English translation: “fif fota heah is se dura and þrie maeg samod þurghgangend”, in Modern English: “five foot high is the door and three may together through-go”.
-The first part of the phrase is clear. The first word is “five”, followed by the plural form teil “feet” of “foot”. The third word is , which is translated in The Etymologies as “lofty, noble, fine” (Ety/BARÁD) but here seems to mean “high”. The fourth word is the definite article “the” and the fifth is “gate, door”. The sixth word ar is a variant of “and” (like its cognate ᴹQ. ) followed by “three”.
-The remainder of the phrase is difficult to interpret. The eighth word is illegible. Rhona Beare thought it might be ?nelwhi or ?maohi (VT07/7). Hammond and Scull rendered it as neledhi, which they interpreted as a variant of neledh “three”, so that neledh neledhi means “three by three”. Willis and Salo suggested instead that neledhi means “to walk [in]” (, /217), the infinitive of an unattested verb * “to go in, enter” (/276). Willis further suggested that it was written over a rejected form neledie (also noted, but not interpreted, by Hammond and Scull), the Old Noldorin form of the word. Willis and Salo analyzed this verb as a combination of the prefix * “in” (also seen in N. “stick in”) and a derivative of the root ᴹ√ “go, fare, travel”. If the eighth word corresponds to English “walk [in]”, then this interpretation is quite plausible.
+The first part of the phrase is clear. The first word is “five”, followed by the Noldorin plural form teil “feet” of “foot”. The third word is , which is translated in The Etymologies as “lofty, noble, fine” (Ety/BARÁD) but here seems to mean “high”. The fourth word is the definite article “the” and the fifth is “gate, door”. The sixth word ar is a Noldorin variant of later Sindarin “and” (like its cognate ᴹQ. ) followed by “three”.
+The remainder of the phrase is difficult to interpret. The eighth word is illegible. Rhona Beare thought it might be ?nelwhi or ?maohi (VT7/7). Hammond and Scull rendered it as neledhi, which they interpreted as a variant of neledh “three”, so that neledh neledhi means “three by three”. Willis and Salo suggested instead that neledhi means “to walk [in]” (, /217), the infinitive of an unattested verb * “to go in, enter” (/276). Willis further suggested that it was written over a rejected form neledie (also noted, but not interpreted, by Hammond and Scull), the Old Noldorin form of the word. Willis and Salo analyzed this verb as a combination of the prefix * “in” (also seen in N. “stick in”) and a derivative of the root ᴹ√ “go, fare, travel”. If the eighth word corresponds to English “walk [in]”, then this interpretation is quite plausible.
The ninth word gar seems to be a verb corresponding to English “may” in the sense “can, be able to”. Salo suggested that it is the Noldorin verb , but this is translated “hold, have” in The Etymologies (Ety/GAR), which does not seem appropriate. Willis suggested that it is the (Early Noldorin?) verb ᴱN. “went” seen in the phrase “towards (the river) Sirion went laughing”; Hammond and Scull also suggested it might be a verb meaning “go”. A third possibility is that it is a soft mutation of the verb “do, make” (Ety/KAR), perhaps lenited because it follows an infinitive form; the meaning of car- seems to me to be a bit closer in sense to “may”, but this is still just a guess.
-The last word might correspond to English “abreast”, but Hammond, Scull, Willis and Salo all suggested that it means “together through”, matching the Old English “samod þurgh”. Willis and Salo both independently analyzed this word as the prefix “together” and a lenited prefixal form dre of “through”, with the final -bh (pronounced [v]) marking it as an adverb (, /217). The word godrebh was preceded by some deleted and unclear writing, rendered ?goldegoelend by Rhona Beare (VT07/7), perhaps two rejected forms ?golde >> goelend (?“together-go”), though Hammond and Scull transcribed the two rejected forms as golda >> goelend (TAI/150, note #6).
]]>The last word might correspond to English “abreast”, but Hammond, Scull, Willis and Salo all suggested that it means “together through”, matching the Old English “samod þurgh”. Willis and Salo both independently analyzed this word as the prefix “together” and a lenited prefixal form dre of “through”, with the final -bh (pronounced [v]) marking it as an adverb (, /217). The word godrebh was preceded by some deleted and unclear writing, rendered ?goldegoelend by Rhona Beare (VT7/7), perhaps two rejected forms ?golde >> goelend (?“together-go”), though Hammond and Scull transcribed the two rejected forms as golda >> goelend (TAI/150, note #6).
]]>In notes on The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, while discussing the river name S. Gwathló Tolkien said:
+The element -ló was also of Common Eldarin origin, derived from a base (s)log: in Common Eldarin sloga had been a word used for streams of a kind that were variable and liable to overflow their banks at seasons and cause floods when swollen by rains or melting snow; especially such as the Glanduin (described above) that had their sources in mountains and fell at first swiftly, but were halted in the lower lands and flats. *sloga became in Sindarin lhô; but was not in later times much used except in river or marsh names. The Quenya form would have been hloä (VT42/9).+
Tolkien rejected this etymology, however, replacing it with the following:
+Lô was derived from Common Eldarin base LOG “wet (and soft), soaked, swampy, etc.” The form *loga produced S. lô and T. loga; and also, from *logna, S. loen, T. logna “soaking wet, swamped”. But the stem in Quenya, owing to sound-changes which caused its derivatives to clash with other words, was little represented ... the Quenya form of S. lô would have been **loa, identical with Q. loa < *lawa “year”; the form of S. loen, T. logna would have been **lóna identical with [Q.] lóna “pool, mere” (VT42/10).+
This final etymology appears to be the last one Tolkien wrote on the topic; later in the same document he used the form lô in discussions of the river name S. Ringló (VT42/13-14). As for the meaning of the word, it seems it applied both to wide rivers with a tendency to flood their banks, as well as fenlands or wetlands in general.
+Conceptual Development: As an element in river names, -lo first appeared in the river names N. Gwathlo and N. Ringlo in Lord of the Rings drafts (TI/304; WR/287). G. lô “pool, lake” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s is possible precursor (GL/54).
+Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin, I prefer the pre-1968 form of the word lhô, as this is both more distinctive and also allows us to salvage Q. hloä of similar meaning.
]]>Conceptual Development: In an early form of this entry, it appeared as Lhebenidh or Lhebelidh (EtyAC/LÁYAK).
]]>Conceptual Development: When this name first appeared in Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, N. was translated “Blue River” (TI/124), clearly based on the Noldorin word for “blue”: (Ety/LUG²). Tolkien later changed the Sindarin word for “blue” to , so this derivation no longer worked. At one point he even considered renaming the river to , but decided against it since Lhûn already appeared on the published maps of The Lord of the Rings (VT48/28).
-In notes on the nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings from 1966-7, Tolkien considered a variety of derivations for this name (PE17/136-7), ultimately connecting it to the root √(S)LOW “flow freely (fully)” from which “flood” was derived, as well as Q. lóne “(deep) pool”. He translated the name as “deep of water”, saying that the name originally applied to the gulf rather than the river. Later Tolkien invented another derivation, from the Dwarvish words “fall, descend swiftly” (VT48/24).
+In notes on the nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings from 1966-7, Tolkien considered a variety of derivations for this name (PE17/136-7), ultimately connecting it to the root √(S)LOW “flow freely (fully)” from which “flood” was derived, as well as Q. lóne “(deep) pool”. He translated the name as “deep of water”, saying that the name originally applied to the gulf rather than the river. Later Tolkien invented another derivation, from the Dwarvish words “fall, descend swiftly” (VT48/24).
A fuller discussion of these developments can be found in Patrick Wynne’s article “The Problem of Lhûn” (VT48/26-29).
]]>The word mallorn did not appear in The Etymologies, but it did appear in Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s (TI/226, 233), so perhaps Tolkien introduced this sound change between writing The Etymologies and starting work on The Lord of the Rings.
It is unclear whether or not ll should be voiceless or not in mallorn. The quote above from 1962 says that ll was later revoiced, but the quote from the late 1960s says that “In the transcription of Elvish Sindarin in The Lord of the Rings, ll is used as in the manner of modern Welsh for medial voiceless l” (VT42/27). This statement is quite sweeping, and implies that all double-l in Sindarin are voiceless. However, as Carl Hostetter pointed out (PE42/31, note #70) this is contradicted by Tolkien’s pronunciation notes in The Lord of the Rings appendices: “consonants written twice, as tt, ll, ss, nn, represent long, ‘double’ consonants” (LotR/1115), with no mention of voicelessness. At a bare minimum ll of other origins, such as in S. “friend”, were almost certainly not voiceless, and it is possible that ll in mallorn was also regularized back to a voiced combination.
Furthermore, despite clearly describing this change in several places, Tolkien does not seem to have fully adopted the lth > ll phonetic development, even in the Sindarin period. There are quite a few examples of medial lth from names appearing in the 1950s and 1960s: S. , S. , S. , S. , S. . These names can be explained as archaic forms (they all date to the First Age), but another interesting example, S. tolthui, appears as an alternate form of “eighth” in The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor notes quoted above:
-The forms canthui, echui, tolthui are those of the southern Sindarin dialect adopted by the Noldor (VT42/27).+
The forms canthui, enchui, tolthui are those of the southern Sindarin dialect adopted by the Noldor (VT42/27).
The form tolthui is contrasted with its “normal” form tollui (VT42/25), but that normal form itself was first written as (deleted) tolthui (VT42/31, note #63). Tolkien’s vacillation is understandable in the context of two other statements from the same document: “the spirant was reintroduced from the spelling” and “the final form was often reintroduced medially” (VT42/27, from the quote above). It seems that in some circumstances the sound lth was restored, either drawing from tengwar spelling (j3), or by analogy from similar words ending in final -lt. Differing pronunciations may have persisted as dialectical variations, as with tollui vs. tolthui.
Conceptual Developments: The medial combinations mf, nth, nch were fairly common in the Gnomish of the 1910s, so it seems this sound change was not part of Tolkien’s earliest ideas for the language. As noted by Roman Rausch in his Historical Phonologies of Ilkorin, Telerin and Noldorin around 1923 (HPITN/§4.1.5), there are examples of medial combinations nc, nt, mp changing to (long) nasals (probably via mph, nth, ŋch) starting with the Early Noldorin of the 1920s:
Such negatives of possibility as “countless, innumerable”, “unspeakable” are expressible either (a) by expressions equivalent to our “without count” or (b) by the suff[ix] -ui “having quality”, which with verbal stems has implication of possibility or suitability, úbedui “not fit to say, unspeakable”; únodui “countless” ...
Negation of a sentence is in Sindarin expressed by prefixing ú to verbal forms: as (úmedin) úvedin “I do not eat”, úgar (or ú-gar) “he does not do (make)”. But in archaic Sindarin and verse, as in Quenya uin “I do not”, únen “I did not” could be used with bare verbs, as uin gar “I do not make” (PE17/144-145).
-This paints a fairly complete picture for Sindarin verbal negation using the particle/prefix ú- “no, not”, which induces soft mutation on the following verb: ú-vedin “I do not eat”. There is also a “negative verb” with present tense ui, past tense un which can take pronominal suffixes. It can be used to negate an (uninflected) verb stem in archaic/poetic speech: †uin vad “I do not eat”. It might also be used as a negative copula “is/am/are not” as in uin adan, ni edhel “I am not a man, I [am] an elf”; unen ennas “I was not there”.
+This paints a fairly complete picture for Sindarin verbal negation using the particle/prefix ú- “no, not”, which induces soft mutation on the following verb: ú-vedin “I do not eat”. There is also a “negative verb” with present tense ui, past tense ûn which can take pronominal suffixes. It can be used to negate an (uninflected) verb stem in archaic/poetic speech: †uin vad “I do not eat”. It might also be used as a negative copula “is/am/are not” as in uin adan, ni edhel “I am not a man, I [am] an elf”; únen ennas “I was not there”. Alternately, û by itself might serve as a negative copula after †ui became archaic: ni û adan, ni edhel.
In Quenya verbal notes from 1969, Tolkien changed his mind, rejecting u-negation and restoring la-negation. He wrote:
û will not do. It is not necessary to avoid at all costs similarities with known European languages — Eldarin is deliberately devised to resemble them in style — but here the resemblance either to Greek ou (phon. û) or to the unrelated Norse ú, as a prefix, is too close.
@@ -356504,8 +356886,7 @@ Back to ú
neo-version="0.8.4" page-id="2930893" mark="!"> -*ilyā; Short/unstressed variant ú (+ nom.) also possible, cf. si loa “this year” (PE22:168), distinguished from abessive/privative ú ( + gen.) “without.”]]> -+ @@ -362531,10 +362912,10 @@ Back to ú
- +Sindarin name of the Entwash (UT/318), also appearing as Onodiōl in Tolkien’s “Unfinished Index” of The Lord of the Rings (RC/334). This name appears to be a combination of “Ent” and “flood”. + Sindarin name of the Entwash (UT/318), also appearing as Onodiōl in Tolkien’s “Unfinished Index” of The Lord of the Rings (RC/334). This name appears to be a combination of “Ent” and “flood”. Conceptual Development: In Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, this name first appeared as N. (TI/250), apparently using an earlier name for “Ent”, as suggested by Roman Rausch (EE/2.35).
]]>- + @@ -365760,7 +366141,7 @@ Back to ú
gloss="naked (of persons)">An adjective for “naked (of persons)” derived from √PAR “peel” appearing in notes from around 1959 (PE17/86). +Conceptual Development: There was a similar word G. falon or falin “naked” in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s (GL/33), derived from the early root ᴱ√FALA “bare, nude” (QL/37).
-Neo-Sindarin: I would avoid these words for purposes of Neo-Sindarin, using [N.] hell “naked” instead. In the case of 1959 parca, it conflicts with 1930s N. parch “dry”, and while we have number of options for “naked” words, there are not many good options for “dry”.
]]>Neo-Sindarin: I would avoid these words for purposes of Neo-Sindarin, using [N.] hell “naked” instead. In the case of 1959 parch, it conflicts with 1930s N. parch “dry”, and while we have number of options for “naked” words, there are not many good options for “dry”.
]]>@@ -366094,12 +366475,12 @@ Back to ú
√KAT: echad- “make” → past echant “made” [deleted edagant] (PE17/42). √KAW: caw- “taste” → past cawn “tasted” vs. agowen (PE22/152). √KWET: ped- “say” → past pent “said” (VT50/20). -√(W)AW: gwae- “go” → strong past anu, awn “went” (< *awnē), ordinary past gwanu, gwawn (< *wawnē) (PE17/148). +√AW/WA: gwae- “go” → past anu, awn “went” (< *awnē); this verb is quite irregular (PE17/148). Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of variation in these forms. In those pasts with vowel lengthening, two lack the expected vowel change: aval, aðag (from bal-, dag-). In one case the initial consonant does not mutate: edíw (from dew-). In one case the vowel augment is different from the base vowel eniðen (√NID); perhaps this is by analogy with verbs whose base vowel is e such edíw. The vowel augment is a bit less obvious for aw (from sav-), since the initial consonant s vanished medially: asāmē > ahauv(e) > auv > aw.
-For those pasts with nasal infixion, some have a vowel augment but others do not: cawn, pent, gwanu/gwawn (from √KAW, √KWET, √WAW). The lack of an augment in echant is probably due to its verbal prefix; Tolkien considered but deleted a past form with an augment between the prefix and the verb: edagant. Most of the roots with nasal infixion originally ended in voiceless stop, though a couple ended in w instead; the verb caw- “taste” has past tense forms both with and without nasals (cawn vs. agowen).
+For those pasts with nasal infixion, some have a vowel augment but others do not: cawn, pent (from √KAW, √KWET). The lack of an augment in echant is probably due to its verbal prefix; Tolkien considered but deleted a past form with an augment between the prefix and the verb: edagant. Most of the roots with nasal infixion originally ended in voiceless stop, though a couple ended in w instead; the verb caw- “taste” has past tense forms both with and without nasals (cawn vs. agowen).
Despite these variations, the most common pattern adheres to the one described in Q&E: in the ancient past the base vowel was added as a vocalic augment and also the base vowel was lengthened. As the sounds changed in Sindarin, the consonant after the augment underwent soft mutation, while the lengthened base vowel underwent its usual changes: ē > ī, ō > ū, ā > au. Finally, the lengthened vowel shortened in final syllables, resulting in the mutations e, o, a → i, u, o, though in the last case aw remained if the result was a monosyllable: aw past of sav- (see above) and aul as the strong past of gala- (see below). Although we only have a couple of examples, it seems the vowel remained short even when pronominal suffixes were added, as in: agowen, enidhen; the suffixes were probably added to the uninflected form.
It is not entirely clear what the augment would be for verbs with base vowels i and (very rare) u, but based on enidhen (from √NID) it seems possible that the augment would be e and o by analogy with those verbs having base vowels e and o. So perhaps the past tense of tir- “watch” would be *edir, and the past tense of tol- “come” (from √TUL) would be *odul.
Nasal-infixed pasts mostly appear with verbs whose ancient roots ended in p, t, k. These became b, d, g in the verb stem, but in past forms the original voiceless stop was preserved (or restored) as they usually were when they appeared after nasals at the end of words, so that b, d, g → mp, nt, nc: *agamp “leapt” from cab-, √KAP; echant “made” from echad-, √KAT; adhanc “slayed” from dag-, √DAK (perhaps *annanc from √NDAK).
@@ -366971,6 +367352,17 @@ Back to ú
+ + + + + A Gondorian city at the mouth of the (LotR/789), translated “Garth of Royal Ships” (RC/535), a combination of “fenced field”, the prefix “royal” and the lenited form of the plural cîr of “ship” (RC/625). @@ -369699,7 +370091,7 @@ Back to ú
The Sindarin simple present tense seems to be based on the ancient Common Eldarin aorist tense. We have relatively few examples of its uses, so its exact function is hard to determine, but many Neo-Sindarin writers assume it functions more or less like the English simple present, but can also function like the present continuous/imperfect as well: the phrase tôl achar(n) was in different places glossed as either “vengeance comes (tôl)” (WJ/254) or “vengeance is coming” (PE17/166). - @@ -373328,7 +373720,8 @@ reach — a measure = 2 feet”, apparently referring to both the arm itself andFor derived verbs, the present tense is simply the unadorned verb stem: gala “grow” (gala-). For monosyllabic basic verbs, the stem vowel is lengthened as is often the case in monosyllables: câr “do, make” (car-). Unlike the past tense, the lengthened vowel does not change in quality, since this lengthening was quite late. Thus the present tense of tol- “come” is tôl (though in one place Tolkien did write tûl, WJ/301). Presumably vowel lengthening would not occur if the basic verb stem was polysyllablic, such as *echad “shape” for the verb echad-. There are no attested examples of this in Sindarin, but several such examples appear in Early Noldorin and Noldorin of the 1920s and 30s (see Conceptual Development below).
+For derived verbs, the present tense is simply the unadorned verb stem: gala “grow” (gala-). For monosyllabic basic verbs, the base vowel is lengthened as is often the case in monosyllables: câr “do, make” (car-). Unlike the past tense, the lengthened vowel does not change in quality, since this lengthening was quite late. Thus the present tense of tol- “come” is tôl (though in one place Tolkien did write tûl, WJ/301). Presumably vowel lengthening would not occur if the basic verb stem was polysyllablic, such as *echad “shape” for the verb echad-. There are no attested examples of this in Sindarin, but several such examples appear in Early Noldorin and Noldorin of the 1920s and 30s (see Conceptual Development below).
Things become more complex when pronominal suffixes are added. In the case of derived verbs, a pronominal suffix usually means the final a of the verb changes to o as in galon “I grow” (gala-), but in some cases the a is preserved: before -r and pronominal suffixes that were clusters; see verb inflections for further discussion. In the case of basic verbs, the ancient aorist suffix i is preserved, and causes internal i-affection of the base vowel: cerin “I do” (car-); see the discussion in vowel mutations for the origin of this sound change. The net result is that for many basic verbs, the vowel becomes e in an inflected present tense:
- car-: present tense cerin “I do” (PE17/132).
@@ -372979,7 +373371,7 @@ reach — a measure = 2 feet”, apparently referring to both the arm itself andA Sindarin word for “body”, cognate of Q. hrondo, appearing as rhonn in Quenya Notes from 1957 (QN: PE17/183) and as rhond or rhonn in notes concerning spirit, also probably from 1957 (NM/237). In the former document, it was derived from the root √SRON, a variant of √RON “solid, tangible, firm” (PE17/183). - +Neo-Sindarin: Its Quenya cognate hrondo was replaced by Q. hroa < ✶srawā in notes from 1958-59 (MR/209, 350). However, the Sindarin equivalent of hroa was rhaw, a word that also meant “flesh” along with many other (Neo) Sindarin meanings such as “wild” and “lion”. As such, I would retain rhond as “body” for purposes of Neo-Sindarin; the continued viability of the root √RON is indicated by other words like S. Grond.
]]>Neo-Sindarin: Its Quenya cognate hrondo was replaced by Q. hröa < ✶srawā in notes from 1958-59 (MR/209, 350). However, the Sindarin equivalent of hroa was rhaw, a word that also meant “flesh” along with many other (Neo) Sindarin meanings such as “wild” and “lion”. As such, I would retain rhond as “body” for purposes of Neo-Sindarin; the continued viability of the root √RON is indicated by other words like S. Grond.
]]>+ page-id="2455587265" + mark="!"> @@ -374236,10 +374629,10 @@ reach — a measure = 2 feet”, apparently referring to both the arm itself and - A river in Gondor (LotR/875) translated “Chillflood” (VT42/13), a combination of “cold” and “flood” (SA/ring, VT42/13-4, VT48/27-8). + A river in Gondor (LotR/875) translated “Chillflood” (VT42/13), a combination of “cold” and “flood” (SA/ring, VT42/13-4, VT48/27-8). Conceptual Development: In Lord of the Rings drafts from the 1940s, this name first appeared as N. with a short o (WR/287).
]]>- + @@ -379445,7 +379838,7 @@ S. * “wreath, garland”, N. * “line, row” o: -S. “flood, fenland”, +S. “flood, fenland”, N. “thigh”,
In the above, macron ¯ marks vowel length, acute accent ´ marks primary stress, grave accent ` marks secondary stress, and | marks the iambic feet (low-high syllable pair). The above rendition isn’t perfect, since we have to assume the diphthong ui in Fanuilos is broken into two syllables: Fanú-ilòs. That sort of thing is not unusual for poetry, though, and without splitting the diphthong these lines would be the only ones in the poem containing seven syllables.
+In the above, macron ¯ marks vowel length, acute accent ´ marks primary stress, grave accent ` marks secondary stress, and | marks the iambic feet (low-high syllable pair). The above rendition requires that we have to assume the diphthong ui in Fanuilos is broken into two syllables: Fanú-ilòs, but Tolkien himself told us this was the case:
+The first vowel (a and u) was in both [ae, ui] somewhat prolonged. These dipthongs were thus of a length more or less equal to the time occupied by two syllables, and are therefore occasionally employed metrically where the normal metre requires two. Fanuilos is an example both on p. 250, Vol. I, and in Sam’s invocation, Vol. II, p. 339. (RGEO/63, footnote).
Assuming the above metrical analysis is correct, it seems that Sindarin puts secondary stress on alternating syllables before and after the main stress; Welsh does something similar, except the main stress always fall on the second-to-last syllable in Welsh. Given the small sample size and comparative shortness of the example words, other rules are possible (like secondary stress on initial and final syllables removed from the main stress). However, in languages where secondary stress is independent of syllable weight, alternating stressed syllables is the most common pattern.
Another late poem, Lúthien’s Song, also seems to be iambic tetrameter.
@@ -384241,7 +384635,7 @@ le lín|non ím | Tinū́v|ièl
Conceptual Development: In The Etymologies of the 1930s “wood (material)” was N. tawar (Ety/TÁWAR), whereas in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s it was G. âl (GL/19).
]]>In all cases, it seems these words would have the (Noldorin or Sindarin) plural mutations that would normally occur in final syllables: -a → -ai (N. -ei), -e → -i, -o/u → -y (N. -ei/-y). In the example of S. thôl with plural thely, Tolkien gave another plural thuil, probably a reformation to the normal plural pattern for ô-monosyllables. Thus, in those cases where the newly-final vowel was also lost, I think there would be a tendency for the word to reform to normal plural patterns. However, in cases where the vowel survived after weak consonant losses, I think the plural mutation would be basically the same as those in final syllables of polysyllables ending in single consonants.
Plurals of monosyllables ending in vowels: There are relatively few Sindarin monosyllabic nouns ending in vowels, but they could result from (extremely rare) Common Eldarin monosyllabic nouns that either ended in a vowel or nouns which became monosyllables after the loss of an ancient weak consonant. Unfortunately, we have very few examples of such nouns, so their possible plural patterns are unclear. The only potential example is fui “paths” a plural of otherwise unattested S. fû (or ?fô).
-It is possible the plurals of ancient monosyllables would follow the developments of more ancient diphthongs, so that ai > ae; ei > ī; oi, ui > ui. In the case of ê, ô, û monosyllables, these would be supported by the plural patterns of other words, so that the plurals of [N.] tê “line” is very likely *tî “lines” and (h)lô “flood” very likely has plural *(h)lui “floods”. In the case of â, however, any plurals with ae would be incredibly rare (possible non-existent), and I suspect they would reform to ai by analogy with more common monosyllabic plurals resulting from lost weak consonants. A hypothetical example:
+It is possible the plurals of ancient monosyllables would follow the developments of more ancient diphthongs, so that ai > ae; ei > ī; oi, ui > ui. In the case of ê, ô, û monosyllables, these would be supported by the plural patterns of other words, so that the plurals of [N.] tê “line” is very likely *tî “lines” and l(h)ô “flood” very likely has plural *(h)lui “floods”. In the case of â, however, any plurals with ae would be incredibly rare (possible non-existent), and I suspect they would reform to ai by analogy with more common monosyllabic plurals resulting from lost weak consonants. A hypothetical example:
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