Perfect Participle

how to form it and its uses

A-Verbs and TA-Verbs

Remove the A, add -iel to the root, and use I-affection on the root vowel.

The only exception is muda-, since the U comes from a long O, and long vowels aren't affected by I-affection.

fara- "hunt" → feriel "having hunted"
brona- "survive" → breniel "having survived"
muda- "labor" → mudiel "having labored"

I-Verbs and IA-Verbs

Add -iel, or delete the -ia and then add -iel. For I-verbs and A-verbs ending in -ia, the sund�mar change the same way. To understand which letter changes into which, you must look back to Eldarin. These vowels, like the I-verbs, will lengthen instead of undergo I-Affection.

For the A-verbs ending in -uia, remove the A, add -el. For -uia, there are no vowel changes.

To help you understand this, I've made a chart of the historical changes to these vowels.

Short Sund�marLengthened Sund�mar
AÓ
E/IÍ
O/UÚ
Y

Because the sund�mar of IA-verbs are all I-affected, you need to know what the ancient Eldarin sund�ma of the verb was.

Unlike I-verbs, IA-verbs can have a diphthong, EI, in the place of their sund�ma. This is usually an alternate version of an E, and you'll find that such verbs usually have both forms, such as telia-/teilia- and *medhia-/*meidhia-.

SindarinSund�maPerfect ParticipleEnglish
dag-Ad�gielhaving slain
penia-Ap�nielhaving fixed
teilia-At�lielhaving played
heb-Eh�bielhaving kept
tir-It�rielhaving guarded
brenia-Obr�nielhaving endured
tog-Ut�gielhaving led
elia-U�lielhaving poured
yr-Yi�rielhaving ran

If the verb was made from a compound, only the core root's sund�ma is changed.

SindarinSund�maPerfect ParticipleEnglish
echad-Aech�dielhaving fashioned
gonedia-Ogon�dielhaving counted

There is no exact equivalent to this form in English, so this will take some explaining. It has several properties:

  1. It functions as a gerund - marking dependent clauses, not having its own subject, and having direct objects.
  2. It marks an action that had been completed before the action of the main sentence's verb.
  3. It can be used alongside verbs of any conjugation: present, future, or past.

The closest we have in English to this grammatical form is "having ____."

Although it is tempting because we only have one Sindarin past tense, it isn't used for the conjugation of the past tense. Instead it shows the order of an event in relationship to the main action of the sentence.

Nin adl�giel, ni meria. - Having released me, she/he protects me.
I i�n odul am b�r, t�liel a mellyn �n. - The boy came home, having played with his friends.

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