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Paul Strack

Quenya Grammar P93: Numerals

Tolkien wrote a series of essays on Elvish numbers in the late 1960s. One of those essays, Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi (ELN), gave a set of numbers that many Neo-Quenya writers now use (VT48/6): er or min “one”. atta “two”. nelde “three”. canta “four”. lempe “five” ¹. enque “six”. otso

Quenya Grammar P92: Prepositions

Like most head-initial languages, Quenya uses prepositions to express various relationships between words: i falmalinnar imbe met “on the foaming waves between us” (LotR/377), or ilye mahalmar “above all thrones” (UT/305), ve maiwi yaimie “like gulls wailing” (MC/222). The preposition appears at the beginning of the expression, followed by the

Quenya Grammar P90: Comparison

In Tolkien’s later writing, Quenya did not have a direct equivalent of English’s comparative “-er” suffix. In linguistic notes from 1966-67, Tolkien said that “A is brighter than B” is expressed using the preposition lá “beyond”: A (ná) calima lá B (PE17/90), where the copula ná- “to be” is optional

Quenya Grammar P89: Adjectives

Adjectives in Quenya generally (but not always) precede the noun they modify and generally (but not always) are inflected into the plural when they modify plural nouns. As Tolkien described it in Common Eldarin: Noun Structure from the early 1950s: Adjectives were not distinguished inflexionally from nouns in Eldarin. But

Quenya Grammar P87: Interrogative

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