LESSON FIVE
Lesson 13 - Prepositions (part one) Lesson 14 - Prepositions (part two) Lesson 15 - 'In' and Nasal mutation Lesson 16 - Possessive pronouns Lesson 17 - Verbs (present tense) Lesson 18 - Verbs (past tense, parts 1-4) Lesson 19 - Verbs (past tense, parts 5-7) Lesson 20 - Verbs (future tense) Lesson 21 - Verbs (conditional) Lesson 22 - Irregular verbs. Present Perfect Tense I have sung The present perfect tense is a rather important tense in English, but it gives speakers of some languages a difficult time. That is because it uses concepts or ideas that do not exist in those languages. In fact, the structure of the present perfect tense is very simple.
TheVerb: Present tense and agreement in number. Subject/object. The superlativeform of adjectives.
- The past tense tells what has already happened, the present tense tells us what is happening, and the future tense tells what will happen. Tell students that by the end of the lesson, they will be able to identify the past, present, and future tenses, and write a sentence using a tense.
- Added interactive quizzes to Lesson 16 and Lesson 17. 12/08/19 Lessons 14 and 15 now have interactive quizzes. 15/04/19 PDF full course download has been updated to version 8.1 23/03/19 Updated Lesson 6 18/03/19 Added an interactive quiz to Lesson 13 18/01/19 Added a Gondorian Sindarin vocabulary PDF to Lesson.
As I mentioned at thebeginning of the previous lesson, the vocabulary of any language can beseparated into various classes of words, or 'parts of speech'. So farwe have explicitly discussed the nouns, which denote things, and adjectives,which are words used to describe nouns (linguists would find these definitionsrather simplistic, but they will do for our purpose). Actually we have alreadytouched on a three other parts of speech as well, without discussing them indepth. As part of Lesson Two you hopefully memorized the word nu'under', which is a preposition; prepositions are small wordsor 'particles' like under, on, of, to, in,about etc., often used to provide information about spatialrelationships (e.g. 'under the tree' = nu i alda),though frequently they are used in more abstract contexts. With the word ar'and' we have also included the most typical representative of the conjunctions,words used to connect (or indeed 'conjoin') other words, phrases orsentences, e.g. Anar ar Isil = 'the sun and themoon'. Still, no thorough discussion of prepositions or conjunctions assuch seems necessary: in Quenya they seem to behave pretty much like theirEnglish equivalents, so for the most part you simply have to learn thecorresponding Quenya words.
Another part of speech that we havealready touched on is far more sophisticated and intriguing: the verb.We encountered one verb in the previous lesson: ná 'is', withits plural form nar 'are'. As verbs go, this one is not veryexciting; it is used simply to coordinate a noun with some sort of predicatethat tells us what the noun 'is': Aran ná taura, 'a kingis mighty', tasar ná alda 'a willow is a tree'. As I saidin the previous lesson, the copula ná doesn't really provide much extrainformation here, except clarifying the relationship between the variouselements of the sentence. Most other verbs (very nearly all other verbs,actually) are however full of meaning. They don't just tell us what someone orsomething 'is', but what someone or something does. The Verbbrings action into the language.
In a sentence like 'the Elf dances' it is easy to identify'dances' as the action-word, telling us what is going on here. Andsure enough, 'dances' is a form of the English verb to dance.This verb may appear in other forms as well; instead of 'dances' we mightsay 'danced', which moves the action into the past: 'TheElf danced.' This illustrates an important feature of verbs in Europeanlanguages: the form of the verb gives information about when the actiondenoted takes place, in the present or in the past. Some languages also havespecial future forms. Tolkien built all of these features into Quenya.
The different 'time-forms' of the verb are called various tenses;we speak of present tense, past tense and future tense. We will only deal withthe present tense in this lesson, and return to the others later. (The trinityof present, past and future does not represent a full list of all the tensesthere are. We will discuss a total of five different tenses in this course, andI would be very surprised if unpublished material does not describe even moretenses than the ones we know at present.)
Here I should slip in a warning: Wedon't have much explicit information about the Quenya verb. In theso-called Plotz Letter, that Tolkien wrote to Dick Plotz at some point in themid-sixties, he set out the declension of the noun. Apparently similarinformation about the verb was to follow; it never did. This is of course mostunfortunate. Not that Tolkien took this information to his grave; we know thathe did write about these matters, but the relevant writings have not beenpublished. For the time being, we must for the most part try to figure out thegrammatical rules by ourselves if we would like our Quenya poems to includeverbs. Regarding the present tense, some scraps of information luckilyappeared in Vinyar Tengwar #41, July 2000. Combining this info with somelinguistic deduction, we can probably make out the main features of the systemTolkien had in mind.
As they appear in various sources, Quenya verbs seem to fall into two maincategories (though there are some verbs in our corpus that don't readily fitinto either, even if we exclude the early 'Qenya' material where somereally weird things are going on in the verbal system). The first and largestcategory is what can be termed A-stems, for they all end in -a.Another term for the same is derived verbs, for these verbs neverrepresent a naked primitive 'root-word', but are derived by addingendings to this root. The most frequent of these endings are -ya and-ta; much less frequently we see -na or just -a. Examples:
calya- 'toilluminate' (root KAL)
tulta- 'to sendfor, to fetch, to summon' (root TUL)
harna- 'towound' (root SKAR; primitive initial sk- became h- inQuenya)
mapa- 'to grasp,to seize' (root MAP)
(Convention has itthat when you list verbal stems as such, you add a hyphen at the end; Tolkienusually does so in his writings. The 'stem' of a verb is a basic formthat we start from when deriving other forms, such as different tenses.)
If these A-stems can be termed'derived verbs', the other category consists of the'non-derived' or primary verbs. These are verbs that display nosuch ending as -ya, -ta, -na or -a. The verbalstems in question can be termed 'primary' or 'basic' sincethey essentially represent a primitive root with no additions. For instance,the verb mat- 'eat' comes directly from the root MAT-of similar meaning. Tac- 'fasten' represents the root TAK-'fix, make fast'. Tul- 'come' can be identified withthe root TUL- 'come, approach, move towards' (contrast the derivedverb tulta- 'send for, summon, fetch' from the same root,derived by means of the ending -ta). In the case of the roots MEL-'love' and SIR- 'flow', Tolkien didn't even botherto repeat the glosses for the Quenya verbs mel- and sir- (seeLR:372, 385).
When discussing Quenya verbs, we sometimes need to refer to the stem-vowel.This is the vowel of the root-word underlying the verb as it appears in Quenya.In the case of primary verbs like mel- 'love', it is of courseeasy to identify the stem-vowel, since e is the only vowel there is (andsure enough, this is also the vowel of the underlying root MEL-). In thecase of derived verbs like pusta- 'stop' or ora-'impel', the vowels of the added ending (here -ta and -a)do not count as stem-vowels. Pusta-, for instance, is derivedfrom a root PUS, and its stem-vowel is therefore u, not a.In the vast majority of cases, the stem-vowel is simply the first vowelof the verb (but not necessarily so, there may be some prefixed element).
With this we have the necessary terms in place and can finally startdiscussing the formation of the present tense. To start with the primary verbs,what seems to be the present tense of the verb mel- 'love' isattested in LR:61, Elendil telling his son Herendil: Yonya inyë tye-méla,'I too, my son, I love thee'. Here we have the verb describinga present or on-going (in this case quite permanent) action. Another example ofa present-tense primary verb can apparently be found in the LotR itself, in thefamous greeting elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo, 'a star shines[or, is shining] upon the hour of our meeting'. Síla wouldseem to be the present tense of a verb sil- 'shine (with white orsilver light)', listed in the Silmarillion Appendix. Mélaand síla show the same relationship to the simple verbal stems mel-and sil-: the present-tense forms are derived by lengthening thestem-vowel (this is denoted by supplying an accent, of course) and addingthe ending -a. This conclusion is supported by an example from VT41:13:The verb quet- 'speak, say' there appears in the present tensequéta 'is saying'.
Though forms like méla and sílamay occasionally be translated using the simple present tense in English, hence'love(s)' and 'shines', is seems that the Quenya presenttense properly denotes a continuous or ongoing action that is besttranslated using the English 'is ...-ing' construction, as in theexample quéta just quoted: this is 'is saying' rather thanjust 'says'. The conclusion that the Quenya present tense properlydenotes continuous actions is also supported by other evidence: TheQuenya present tense of the primary verb mat- 'eat' is nowhereattested in published material. However, Tolkien stated that mâtâ was'the stem of the continuous form', which could be translated 'iseating' (VT39:9; â here denotes long a, in Quenya spelt á).Tolkien actually put an asterisk in front of mâtâ to mark it as an'unattested' form, so this should evidently be taken as primitiveElvish rather than Quenya. How Quenya evolved from the primitive language canbe inferred from many other examples, so we know that mâtâ would comeout as máta. This form would seem to fall into the same pattern as méla,síla and quéta: lengthened stem-vowel and ending -a (andworking backwards, we can deduce that Tolkien meant méla, síla, quétato be descended from primitive Elvish mêlâ, sîlâ, kwêtâ).Presumably these are all 'continuous' forms; just like primitive mâtâ'is eating' they apparently emphasize the ongoing nature ofthe action: Síla may literally be 'is shining' rather thanjust 'shines'. Perhaps the lengthening of the stem-vowel somehowsymbolizes this ongoing or 'drawn-out' action. In the case of mélain the sentence inyë tye-méla, it is more natural to translate 'Ilove you' rather than 'I am loving you', but the latter wouldseem to be the most literal meaning.
Then we must considerthe second and larger category of verbs, the A-stems. In their case, theinformation from VT41 is of particular value.
It seems that theA-stems form their present tense by somewhat the same rule as the primaryverbs, but the rule needs a little 'adaptation' to fit the shape ofan A-stem verb. Our sole attested example is the verb ora-'urge' or 'impel'. VT41:13, 18 indicates that its presenttense is órëa ('is urging'). As in the case of primary verbs,the stem-vowel has been lengthened and the ending -a has been added.There is one complication, though: since the verbal stem ora- alreadyended in -a, this vowel is changed to e so as to avoid twoa's in sequence: What would be óra-a manifests as órëa.Hence we must conclude that verbs like mapa- 'grasp, seize'and lala- 'laugh' appear as mápëa, lálëa in thepresent tense.
Short A-stems like ora- or mapa- are however of a ratherunusual shape, since they add only the simple vowel -a to the originalroot. As discussed above, A-stems where the final -a is only part of alonger derivational ending (most often -ya or -ta) are much morecommon. We have already quoted examples like calya- 'toilluminate' and tulta- 'to summon' (roots KAL, TUL).Such 'complex' A-stems have a consonant cluster following thevowel of the original root, like ly and lt in these examples. Wehave no actual example of the present tense of such a verb. If we were to applythe pattern we deduce to exist from the example órëa 'isurging', it would land us on forms like ?cályëa 'isilluminating' and ?túltëa 'is summoning'. However, thereseems to be a phonological rule in Quenya prohibiting a long vowel immediatelyin front of a consonant cluster. It would seem that a word like ?túltëacannot exist (but frankly I'm not quite sure about ?cályëa, since ly/ny/rysometimes seem to count as unitary palatalized consonants rather than consonantclusters). Lacking actual examples, we can only assume that in such a case thelengthening of the vowel would simply be dropped, so that the present tense ofverbs like calya- and tulta- would be calyëa, tultëa(though as I just indicated, ?cályëamay be possible for all Iknow). This would apply wherever there is a consonant cluster following thevowel of the verbal stem. Further examples are lanta- 'fall', harna-'wound' and pusta- 'stop', that would all –presumably – form their present-tense forms in -ëa: Lantëa'is falling', harnëa 'is wounding', pustëa'is stopping'.
We must assume that this system also applies where there is a diphthongin the verbal stem, since like a vowel in front of a consonant cluster, adiphthong cannot be lengthened in any way. The present-tense forms of verbslike faina- 'emit light' or auta- 'pass'would presumably be fainëa, autëa.
We now know enough to start building simple sentences:
¤ Isil síla 'the Moon is shining' (present tense sílaformed from the primary verb sil- 'shine')
¤ I Elda lálëa 'the Elf is laughing' (present tenseformed from the short A-stem lala- 'laugh')
¤ Lassë lantëa 'a leaf is falling' (present tenseformed from the complex A-stem lanta- 'fall'; we cannot have *lántëaparalleling lálëa because a long vowel cannot occur in front of aconsonant cluster)
NOTE(added September 2002): Some of my deductions above have been criticized by VTeditor Carl F. Hostetter. No one disputes the fact that primary verbs formtheir present or 'continuous' tense by lengthening the stem-vowel andadding -a, but the notion that A-stems have present-tense forms in -ëahas proved controversial. Of course, this is based on the one example órëa(from ora- 'impel'), and it was Hostetter himself whopublished this form and suggested that this is an example of thepresent/continuous tense.However, itmay be that the idea of present-tense forms in -ëa represents merely ashort-lived fluctuation in Tolkien's evolving conceptions. I have not changedany of the exercises below, but until we know more about Tolkien's preciseintentions, writers may opt to avoid the present-tense forms in -ëa intheir own compositions. As we will discuss later, there is a way to work aroundthis particular uncertainty.
Some useful terms can be included here. Once you include a verb in thesentence, denoting some kind of action, you must normally devote anotherpart of the sentence to telling who is doing this action. The party thatdoes whatever the verb tells us is being done, constitutes the subjectof the sentence. In a sentence like Isil síla 'the Moon isshining', it is thus Isil 'the Moon' that is the subject,since it is the Moon that does the shining the verb síla tells usabout. In a sentence like i Elda máta 'the Elf is eating', iElda 'the Elf' is the subject, since the Elf does the eating.
This very sentence, i Elda máta, has possibilities. We can addone more element, like the noun massa 'bread', and get iElda máta massa 'the Elf is eating bread'. Now what is thefunction of this added word? It is the 'target' of the verbal action,in this case what is eaten. The target of the verbal action is calledthe object, the passive counterpart of the active subject: The subject doessomething, but the object is what the subject does something to. Thesubject 'subjects' the object to some kind of action. This'action' may of course be much less dramatic than 'subject eatsobject' as in the example above. For instance, it can be as subtle as inthe sentence 'the subject sees the object' (fill in with othersense-verbs if you like), where the 'action' of the subject does notphysically affect the object in any way. That is not the point here. The basicidea of the subject-object dichotomy is simply that the subject doessomething to the object, though 'does something to' mustsometimes be understood in a wider sense.
NOTE:Notice, though, that in sentences with the copula ná/nar'is/are', for instance i alda ná tasar 'the tree is awillow', tasar 'a willow' does not count as theobject of i alda 'the tree'. I alda is the subjectall right, since this is the element that 'does' what little actionthere is in this sentence: 'the tree is...' But tasar'a willow' is not the object, for in this sentence 'thetree' does not do anything to 'a willow' – and thehallmark of the object is that something is done to it. Rather than doinganything do a willow, the tree is a willow, and that is another thingaltogether: Tasar is here the predicate of i alda, as wediscussed in the previous lesson. But if we substitute máta 'iseating' for ná 'is', we are right back to asubject-verb-object construction: I alda máta tasar, 'the tree iseating a willow'. If you are unduly troubled by the fact that this soundssomewhat nonsensical, rest assured that the grammar is fine.
In the case of someverbs, there can be no object. In the case of (say) lanta- 'tofall', you can have a subject and say i Elda lantëa 'the Elfis falling'. Here the subject doesn't do anything to an object; itis just the subject itself that is doing something. With a verb like mat-'eat', it is kind of optional if you want to fill out the sentencewith an object or not: I Elda máta (massa), 'the Elf iseating (bread)'; this works as a complete sentence even without theobject. But some verbs by their meaning demand an object, and thesentence would be felt to be incomplete without it. If we say i Elda mápëa'the Elf is seizing', this only raises the question 'the Elf isseizing what?' and we must come up with an object to make thesentence complete.
In the Plotz letter,Tolkien indicated that in one variant of Quenya, so-called Book Quenya,nouns would have a special form if they function as objects. Singular nounsending in a vowel would have this vowel lengthened (for instance, cirya'ship' would become ciryá if it appears as the object of asentence), and nouns that normally employ the plural ending -r wouldswitch to -i (so 'ships', as object, would be ciryaiinstead of ciryar). This special 'object' form, in linguisticterms the accusative case, was supposedly used in (archaic?) writtenQuenya. However, this accusative does not appear in any actual texts, such as Namáriëor even the last version of the Markirya poem, which must be almostcontemporaneous with the Plotz letter. Namárië, sung by Galadriel, isperhaps supposed to reflect the usage of spoken Third Age Quenya. Whatever thecase, I do not use the distinct accusative in the exercises I have made forthis course (or in my own Quenya compositions). It seems clear that the use ofthe accusative was far from universal, within or without the fictional context.So I would say cirya(r) for 'ship(s)' even if the wordappears as the object of a sentence.
With the terms subjectand object in place, we can discuss another feature of the Quenya verb. Justlike adjectives agree in number with the nouns they describe, verbs agree innumber with their subjects. Let us have a closer look at the first line of Namárië,laurië lantar lassi 'like gold fall the leaves', or literally'golden fall [the] leaves'. Here the adjective laurëa'golden' appears in plural form laurië to agree in number withthe plural noun lassi 'leaves', as we discussed in theprevious lesson. But the verb lanta- 'to fall' must also agreewith its plural subject lassi. The verb lanta therefore takes theending -r. (The verb itself appears in the so-called aoristtense, to be discussed later; you can think of aorist lantar vs. presenttense lantëar as corresponding to English 'fall' vs. 'arefalling', respectively. Some would consider a form like lantëarspeculative, but lantar is directly attested in Tolkien's writings.) Theplural ending -r we have already met in the case of nouns, as in Eldar'Elves', but nouns may also have plurals in -i, depending ontheir shape. In the case of verbs, the plural ending -r seems to beuniversal, no matter what the verb looks like. The ending -r is notrestricted to the present tense of verbs, but is seemingly used in all tenses,wherever a plural subject turns up.
Essentially we have already met the verbal plural ending in the verb nar'are', the plural of ná 'is'. (One may ask why nádoes not turn into ?nár with the long vowel intact. The latter form mayvery well turn out to be valid, but nar 'are' with a short ais at least less prone to confusion with the noun nár'flame'.)
More than one subject has the sameeffect on the verb as a (single) plural subject, the verb taking the ending -rin both instances:
I arani mátar 'the kingsare eating' (sg. i aran máta 'the king is eating')
I aran ar i tári mátar'the king and the queen are eating' (if you want the verb mat-'eat' to appear in singular present-tense form máta here, youmust get rid of either the king or the queen so that there is just a singlesubject)
On the other hand, ithas no effect on the verb if we have a plural object or multiple objects,e.g. i aran máta massa ar apsa 'the king is eating bread andmeat' (apsa 'cooked food, meat'). The verb agrees innumber with the subject only.
It has generally been assumed that theverb has only one plural form, the ending -r being universal. In otherwords, the verb would take the ending -r not only where the subject nounappears in the 'normal' plural (ending -r or -i), butalso where it is dual (ending -u or -t) or appears in the'partitive plural' form (ending -li). However, we have noactual examples from LotR-style Quenya, and in particular I will not rule outthe possibility that there may be a special dual form of the verb to gowith dual subjects (ending -t as for most nouns, like Aldu sílatrather than Aldu sílar for 'the Two Trees are shining'???) Thepublished material allows no certain conclusion in this question, so I willsimply avoid dual subjects in the exercises I make for this course.
The last thing we mustconsider when discussing the verb is the question of word order. Wherein the sentence does the verb fit in, really? English sentences generally listthe subject, the verb and the object (if there is any object) in that order.The attentive reader will have noticed that most of the Quenya sentences aboveare organized in the same manner. This seems to be the most typical wordorder in Quenya prose. Examples of the subject and the verb in that orderinclude lassi lantar 'leaves fall' and mornië caita'darkness lies [upon the foaming waves]' – both from the proseversion of Namárië. But there are also examples of the verb being placedfirst, e.g. Fingon's cry before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad: Auta i lómë!,literally 'Passes the night', but translated 'the night ispassing!' in the Silmarillion ch. 20. Indeed both of theabove-quoted examples of the order subject-verb from the prose Namáriëinstead show the order verb-subject in the poetic version in LotR: lantarlassi, caita mornië. In English, fronting the verb is one way ofturning a declarative statement into a question, e.g. 'Elves arebeautiful' vs. 'are Elves beautiful?', but this way of formingquestions evidently doesn't work in Quenya. (Auta i lómë! 'passesthe night!' for 'the night is passing!' is perhaps an example ofdramatic style or affectionate speech; the verbal action is evidentlyconsidered more important than the subject that performs it. I suspect that ina less dramatic context, one would rather say i lómë auta.)
Namárië also providesan example of a sentence with both subject, verb and object: hísië untúpaCalaciryo míri, 'mist [subject] covers [verb] the jewelsof Calacirya [this whole phrase being the object]'. Yet word orderis again quite flexible, especially in poetry, as further examples from Namáriëshows. We have object-subject-verb in the sentence máryat Elentári ortanë,literally 'her hands (the) Starqueen raised' (in LotR translated'the Queen of the stars...has uplifted her hands'). The sentence ilyëtier undulávë lumbulë, literally 'all paths downlicked (i.e.covered) shadow', has the order object-verb-subject (in LotR, Tolkienused the translation 'all paths are drowned deep in shadow'). In theprose version of Namárië, Tolkien interestingly reorganized both ofthese to subject-verb-object constructions: Elentári ortanë máryat, lumbulëundulávë ilyë tier. This is our main basis for assuming that this is thenormal order, preferred where there are no poetic or dramatic considerations tobe made.
In general, one must be careful about putting the object before thesubject, for this could in some cases cause confusion as to which word isthe object and which is the subject (since the commonest form of Quenya doesnot maintain a distinct accusative case to mark the object). Such inversionsare however quite permissible when the subject is singular and the object isplural or vice versa. Then the verb, agreeing in number with the subject only,will indirectly identify it. In the sentence ilyë tier undulávë lumbulëwe can readily tell that it must be lumbulë 'shadow' and not ilyëtier 'all paths' that is the subject, because the verb undulávëdoes not receive the ending -r to agree with the plural word tier.Hence this can't be the subject – but the singular noun lumbulë'shadow' can.
MOREABOUT ADJECTIVES
In English and otherEuropean languages, adjectives have special forms that are used in comparison.In English, adjectives have a comparative form that is constructed byadding the ending -er, and a superlative form that is formed withthe ending -est. For instance, the adjective tall has thecomparative form taller and the superlative form tallest. (In thecase of some adjectives, English however resorts to the independent words moreand most instead of using the endings, e.g. more intelligent and mostintelligent instead of intelligenter and intelligentest,which forms are perceived as cumbersome.) The function of these forms is tofacilitate comparison between various parties. If we want to say thatone party possesses the quality described by the adjective to a greater extentthan some other party, we may use the comparative form: 'Peter is tallerthan Paul.' The superlative form is used if we want to say that one partypossesses the quality in question more than all others that are considered:'Peter is the tallest boy in the class.'
In the first version of this Quenya lesson, as published in December2000, I wrote: 'But when it comes to Quenya, there is not much we can say.The published material includes absolutely no information about comparativeforms; we don't even have an independent word for 'more'.' Since then, thesituation has happily changed; during 2001 a little more information appearedin the journals Tyalië Tyelelliéva (#16) and Vinyar Tengwar. Nowwe do know a special formula that is used in comparison: 'A is brighterthan B' may be expressed as 'A ná calima lá B', literally'A is bright beyond B' (VT42:32). However, the word lá hasother meanings beside 'beyond', and it will be more practical todiscuss and practice its use in comparison in a later lesson ('The varioususes of lá', Lesson Eighteen).
We will here focus on the superlative form of adjectives instead.It is somewhat disquieting to notice that when Tolkien was making a Quenyatranslation of the Litany of Loreto, he broke off before translating the Latinsuperlative form purissima 'most pure' – as if he himself wasnot quite certain how to render it (VT44:19). Yet one tiny scrap of evidenceregarding the superlative has long been available: In Letters:278-279, Tolkienexplained the adjectival form ancalima occurring in LotR. Translating itas 'exceedingly bright', he stated that this is calima'shining brilliant' with the element an- added, the latterbeing a 'superlative or intensive prefix'. For this reason, manywriters have used the prefix an- as the equivalent of the English ending-est, to construct the superlative form of adjectives – e.g. anvanya'fairest' from vanya 'fair, beautiful' (but isshould be understood that ancalima remains our sole attestedexample of an- used in this sense).
One may wonder whether the form that is made by prefixing an-really is the equivalent of an English superlative, sc. a form of the adjectivethat implies having the most of the property involved in comparison withcertain others. It may be noted that Tolkien translated ancalima,not as 'brightest', but as 'exceedingly bright'. When hedescribes an- as a 'superlative or intensive prefix', he mayalmost seem to mean 'superlative or rather intensive prefix'. So perhapsan- implies 'very, exceedingly' rather than 'most'in comparison with others. It may be noted, though, that the context the inwhich the word is found does seem to imply a certain amount of'comparison': In LotR, ancalima occurs as part of Frodo's'speaking in tongues' in Shelob's lair (volume 2, Book Four, chapterIX): Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima. No translation is given in the LotRitself, but Tolkien later stated that this means 'hail Eärendil brightestof stars' (Letters:385). In Tolkien's mythology, Eärendil carrying theshining Silmaril was set in the heavens as the brightest of the stars. So here,the meaning does seem to be that of a genuine superlative, 'brightest'in the full sense of 'brighter than all the others'. In any case, noother information on how to form the superlative appears in published writings,so we have little choice but to use this formation. We must however be preparedthat future publications may provide more information about this, involvingalternative superlative formations.
17 Verbs (present Tense)sindarin Lessons 4th Grade
The prefix an- in this formcannot be mechanically prefixed to any Quenya adjective, or consonantclusters that Quenya does not allow would sometimes result. An- can beprefixed 'as is' to adjectives beginning in a vowel or in c-, n-,qu-, t-, v-, w-, and y-:
an + alta 'great(in size)' = analta 'greatest'
an + calima'bright' = ancalima 'brightest' (our sole attestedexample!)
an + norna'tough' = annorna 'toughest'
an + quanta'full' = anquanta 'fullest'
an + vanya'beautiful' = anvanya 'most beautiful'
17 Verbs (present Tense)sindarin Lessons Lesson
an + wenya'green' = anwenya 'greenest'
an + yára'old' = anyára 'oldest'
Perhaps we can alsoinclude adjectives in f- and h- (no examples):
an + fána'white' = ?anfána 'whitest'
an + halla'tall' = ?anhalla 'tallest'
What would happen inother cases we cannot say for certain. Either an extra vowel (likely eor a) would be inserted between the prefix and the adjective to break upwhat would otherwise be an impossible cluster, or the final -n of theprefix would change, becoming more similar (or wholly similar) to the firstconsonant of the adjective. Such assimilation is observed elsewhere inour corpus, so this has to be our favourite theory regarding the behavior of an-as well. Before the consonant p-, the n of an would likelybe pronounced with the lips closed because the pronunciation of pinvolves such a closure; hence n would turn into m. (CompareEnglish input often being pronounced imput.) From pitya'small' we would thus have ampitya for 'smallest',this being the impossible word anpitya reworked into a permissible form(Quenya does not have np, but the cluster mp is frequent even inunitary words).
Before the consonants l-, r-, s-, and m-,the final n of an- would probably be fully assimilated, that is,it becomes identical to the following consonant:
an + lauca'warm' = allauca 'warmest'
an + ringa'cold' = arringa 'coldest'
an + sarda'hard' = assarda 'hardest'
an + moina'dear' = ammoina 'dearest'
Cf. such attestedassimilations as nl becoming ll in the compound Númellótë'Flower of the West' (UT:227, transparently a compound of thewell-known words númen 'west' and lótë'flower'). As for the group nm becoming mm, thisdevelopment is seen in the name of the Vanyarin Elf Elemmírë mentionedin the Silmarillion: his (her?) name apparently means'Star-jewel' (elen 'star' + mírë'jewel').
Summaryof Lesson Five: Two majorcategories of Quenya verbs are the primary verbs, that represent aprimitive root with no additions, and the A-stems, that have added anending including the vowel a to the original root (sometimes -aalone, but more commonly some longer ending like -ya or -ta). Theprimary verbs form their present tense by lengthening the stem-vowel and adding-a, e.g. síla 'is shining' from sil- 'toshine'. The A-stems form their present tense by somewhat the same rule,but when the ending -a is added to such a stem (already ending in -a),what would be -aa is changed to -ëa. In our one attested exampleof what may be the present tense of an A-stem, órëa from ora-'to impel', the stem-vowel has been lengthened. However, as far as weunderstand Quenya phonology, a long vowel cannot normally occur in front of aconsonant cluster, and most A-stems do have a consonant cluster following thestem-vowel (e.g. lanta- 'to fall', hilya-'to follow'). Presumably such verbs would form their present tense in-ëa, but the stem-vowel would remain short. Only the (relatively few)A-stems that do not have a consonant cluster following the stem-vowelcan lengthen it in the present tense. (NOTE: Some consider all present-tenseforms in -ëa speculative, and students should understand that given thescarcity of source material, new publications may significantly alter thepicture. The use of such forms in the exercises below should be consideredtentative reconstruction or extrapolation, not necessarily 'Tolkienfact'.) – A verb agrees with its subject in number, receivingthe ending -r if the subject is plural: elen síla 'a star isshining', eleni sílar 'stars are shining'.
A superlative form ofadjectives can be derived by adding the prefix an-, as in ancalima'brightest' from calima 'bright'. We must, however,assume that the n of this prefix is in many cases assimilated to thefirst consonant of the adjective, or consonant clusters that Quenya phonologydoes not allow would arise. For instance, an- + lauca'warm' may produce allauca for 'warmest' (*anlaucabeing an impossible word).
VOCABULARY
canta 'four'
Nauco 'Dwarf'
parma 'book'
tiuca 'thick, fat'
mapa- verb 'grasp, seize'
tir- verb 'watch, guard'
lala- verb 'laugh' (so according to a latesource, PM:359; in earlier material the verb lala-, of a quite differentderivation, has the meaning 'deny': See the entry LA in the Etymologies.We needn't discuss whether one obsoletes the other; here we will use lala-for 'laugh' only.)
caita- verb 'lie' (lie horizontally, not'tell a lie')
tulta- verb 'summon'
linda- verb 'sing' (cf. the word Ainulindalëor 'Music [lit. Singing] of the Ainur')
mat-verb'eat'
cenda- verb 'read'
EXERCISES
1. Translate intoEnglish:
A.I nís lálëa.
B.I antiuca Nauco máta.
C.I tári tíra i aran.
D.I analta oron ná taura.
E.I nér tultëa i anvanya vendë.
F.I aiwë lindëa.
G.I Naucor mápëar i canta Eldar.
H. I antaura aran ná saila.
2. Translate intoQuenya:
I. The woman is watching the greatest (/biggest)ship.
J. The most evil (/evilest) men are dead.
K. The Elf is seizing the book.
L. Four men are lying under a tree.
M. The wisest Elf is reading a book (careful: what probablyhappens to the superlative prefix when it is added to a word like saila'wise'?)
N. The king and the queen are reading the book.
O. The birds are singing.
P. The four Dwarves arewatching a bird.