Long ago, when the languages were still Common Eldarin, the verb-augmenting suffix -ta was a separate morpheme. In Sindarin, -ta has long since been absorbed into the verbs. The only times that we see evidence of it having been there is in the past tense and (rarely) in gerunds. The -ta will be dropped from the verb root and these words will be treated like I-verbs instead of A-verbs. Therefore, they'll be covered in this section instead of the A-verb section.
These verbs are listed with the portion dropped for the past tense in (parentheses). These aren't all of the TA-verbs, just the ones that we have evidence to suggest would lose the TA and act like I-verbs.
This tense is made by changing the root of the verb instead of adding a morpheme to it, thus it's called the "strong past tense." It's used with the TA-verbs and I-verbs.
For the I-verb, there are three ways that the past tense is made, and these are often combined: adding an extra vowel, lengthening the root's vowel, and a nasal infix.
For I-Verbs, you don't need to worry about transitive/intransitive.
If there is a prefix on the verb root, the prefix is added onto the conjugated verb.
A-char- → Ad-agor it did __ again
Ú-bed- → Ú-ebent it couldn't say
However, if the prefix was added back in Common Eldarin the vowel is not prefixed onto the main root. These are pretty easy to pick out because the roots have more than one syllable.
Echad- → Echant, not Edagant "it fashioned"
There is another type of I-verb ending in B, D, and G, but for this lesson, we're learning about conjugating all of the other verb roots that end in a consonant.
When making this type of past tense, take the vowel of the root, called the sundóma (plural sundómar) and put a copy of it before the root-if the root starts with a consonant. Because of this, the following consonant is put under Vocalic Mutation.
If the root begins with a vowel, then nothing is added to the front of the verb.
Then "lengthen" the sundóma. That lengthening happened long ago, before long vowels in the last syllable of multi-syllable words were shortened. Here is a chart of the way that the sundómar change.
A → O (AU in single-syllable words)
E/I → I (Î in single-syllable words)
O → U (Û in single-syllable words)
If you end up with a verb ending in -OW, the W would be lost.
If the sundóma of the Sindarin verb is a Y, it came from an ancient JU or JO, and would become IU in Sindarin.
If you have a root that starts with G, the G is deleted and you're left with nothing but the lengthened sundóma. Because it wouldn't be two syllables long, it'd keep its length.
Dar- → Adhor it halted
*Ther- → *Ethir it sewed
Anna- → Aun it gave
Tir- → Idir it watched
Gor- → Ûr it advised
Nor- → Onur it ran
Yl- → Uiul it drank
For the forms that require pronoun suffixes, the length on the sundómar will reappear, because they aren't in the final syllable and wouldn't have lost their length. Here is a chart of what they'd be:
O/AU → Ó
I/Î → Í
U/Û → Ú
Then an E is suffixed on, followed by the pronoun suffix.
Adhor → Adhóren I halted
Ethir → Ethíreb we, and you, sewed
Aun → Ónef we, not you, gave
Idir → Idírel you watched
Ûr → Úreg you advised
Onur → Onúredh y'all ran
Uiul → Uiúler they drank