13.17 Few, Little
- ᴱQ. mike adv. “a little, a bit”
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An adverb for “little” in the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s with a shorter form mit (PE14/48, 80), also used as a diminutive prefix with variant forms mie and mimīke (PE14/81). In the contemporaneous English-Qenya Dictionary it was translated as “a bit”, and its variant mimīke “a little bit” seems to be somewhat emphatic.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya I would update this adverb to ᴺQ. nicë “a little, a bit” using the later root √NIK, and would use it to modify both adjectives and verbs: nicë maita “a little hungry”, pata nicë “walk a bit”.
- ᴹQ. sem(p)- pref. “few, little, not many, not much”
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A Quenya prefix appearing as sem- or sem(p)e- “few, little, not many, not much” in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 (PE23/100).
- ᴹQ. sempa adj. and pron. “very little, few; a small amount, a small quantity”
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An adjectival form of ᴹQ. sem(p)- “few” appearing in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 (PE23/105). Tolkien said it was “chiefly used with genitive”, as in sempa maltō “a small quantity of gold”; likely this refers specifically to its use in the singular form functioning as a nominalized adjective meaning “a small amount, a small quantity”. As an adjective it usually uses a plural: sempar ondoli “some few stones” (PE23/106). Note that in the 1940s, adjective plurals often us -r; in Tolkien’s later system this would probably be *sempe ondoli. The adjective may also be used with a singular noun, but this is more emphatic: sempa ondo = “a (very) few stones”, sempa malta = “(very) little gold” (PE23/106).
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. manka “few” under the early root ᴱ√MANGA “lacking” (QL/59).
- ᴹQ. sempi pron. “few”
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A (plural) pronominal form of ᴹQ. sem(p)- appearing in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 (PE23/103), as in á anta nin sempi “give me a few [pl.]”. Its adjective form is sempa (PE23/106). In drafts Tolkien gave it a singular form sempe (PE23/106 note #80).