Quenya/Verbs

LESSON 1: Verbs in Present Tense, Plural Formation, Articles

This lesson follows exactly Q#R:Lesson1. It gives learners the key for its understanding, additional information, and lectures notes. Do not forget to do the exercises before starting lesson 2. At the end of this lesson learners will be able to form the (nominative and accusative) plural of nouns and to conjugate verbs in the Present (Continuative form), Imperative and Infinitive. → Go to Exercises. → Go to Lesson 2. ← Go to Lesson 0. → Return to Quenya Course.

Reading

Article

Textbooks references:

• Q#R:17 → 1.2.2
• Q#W:Article

In Quenya there exists only the definite and invariable (both for the singular and the plural) article i. It expresses the concept of definiteness distinguishing entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context, from entities which are not. The lack of the indefinite article is called zero article in linguistics.

par "book, a book"

i parma "the book"

pamar "books (all)"

i parymar "the books (some/many)"

It should be remembered that the article is never used before proper names (Anar "sun" and Isil "moon" in Quenya are considered as such). For further restrictions in its usage, and special meanings of the article, see Q#W section on this subject.

Going in-depth

• Fauskanger's Lesson 2: 3rd section "the Article"

Plural

Textbooks references:

• Q#R:16-17 → 1.2.1
• Q#W:Plural → Plural

A Quenya noun has four grammatical numbers: singular, dual, plural, partitive plural. As most usual languages, the singular is the "default" form, and the others are obtained by inflecting the singular form.

Formation

In this lesson we will find out how to form plurals, and study their usage. Some notes are provided to complete the information provided in Q#R. Because of the attestation of the plural of mallë, beeing maller, words ending in -lë are usually considered to belong to the first group of nouns (those forming the plural in -r).

The following is a table to help memorizing the formation rules:

class	description	plural
I	nouns ending in -a, -o, -i, -u, -ië, -lë	add -r
II	nouns ending in -ë	replace with -i
III	nouns ending in consonants	add -i

Stem variations and Irregular stems

For a large number of nouns, however, the formation of the plural is not such an automatic process: for example, the plural of rusco is not **ruscor but rusqui. This is a consequence of the evolution from Primitive Quendian. The ending part of a nominative singular noun had been modifyed following lambelë (see Lesson 0) preferences, but this modifications didn't happen to the inflected forms of the nouns, because in these the phoneme(s) modifyed was not final. The most common changes involve:

• loss of gemined consonants (eg: falas pl. falassi)
• contraction of the stem (eg: soron pl. sorni)
• final -m assimilated to an -n (eg: talan pl. talami)
• final -c assimilated to a -t (eg: oryat pl. oryaci)

For a comprehensive list of those stem variations, please consult Q#W:Stem forms.

However, there are other stem variations which occur when nouns are declined. These modifications could have been a consequence of the development of an ending vowel lately in the evolution process (I-stems and U-stems nouns). Nouns affected by stem variations include many monosyllabic words formed only by one consonant and one vowel (usually long) (2 letter words), and those nouns whose stems are really irregular (Exceptional stems). While translating texts or declining nouns (not only in plural, as we will see in the future) those modifications must be remembered. For this reason a careful reading of the aforementioned chapter in Q#W is highly recommended.

Usage

To help understanding the most supported hypothesis on the usage of the Plural in Quenya, we quote from Letters:178:

«The Eldarin languages distinguish in form and use between a "partitive" or "particular" plural, and the "general" or "total" plural.»

Tolkien gave an example with Sindarin words (yrch and orchoth), but the same concept can be applied to Quenya Plural and Partitive Plural; even if it seems that while the old Primitive Quendian plural in -î identify the "particular plural" in Sindarin, in Quenya it carries out the function of the General one.

Distinction among these two plural varieties will be analysed in-depth later. For the moment learners need only know that:

• If not preceded by the definite article, a plural noun has absolute meaning. It expresses the category formed by all the objects, animals, people, etc... the singular noun is part of.

This concept may be difficult to understand. The following example might help:

cirya → one ship.

ciryar → all the ships that exist or have existed, the entire category formed by all the ships.

i ciryar → many/some ships, more than three, but not all the existing ones.

Plural: Advanced Level

• On plural form: Fauskanger's Lesson 2: 1st and 2nd section "Noun" and "Plural form" (Q#F:Lesson1)
• On plural usage: Fauskanger's Appendices to Quenya Course: first section "What is the function of the Partitive Plural?" (Q#F:Appendices)
• On Stems variation: Fauskanger's Appendices to Quenya Course: fifth section "Stem Variation" (Q#F:Appendices)

Class of verbs

Textbooks references:

• Q#R:17 → 1.2.3
• Q#W:Verbs

Quenya verbs are usually divided by scholars in 3 main classes, in order to study or develop reconstructions of their conjugations:

class	name	description
I	basic/primitive	end in a consonant
II	A-stems	end in -a (usually -ya, -ta
III	U-stems	end in -u

As U-stems verbs are very few, they are often considered a sort of "limited group of irregular verbs", for this reason we will, accordingly with Q#R, examine their conjugation later.

To note that when talking about verbs, is called stem vowel the vowel which froms part of the primitive root of the verb (being usually the sundóma of the sundocarmë from which the verb is derived).