The basic verbal noun in Quenya is the gerund, formed from the verb stem using the suffix -ie, roughly equivalent to English “-ing”. This English suffix is also used to form the active participle, but Quenya has a different suffix for that. Compare “eating is good” matie mára (ná) [gerund]
Quenya Grammar
Investigations into Sindarin grammar by Paul Strack.
Quenya Grammar P61: Infinitives
Part 60 is just a tiny bridge entry introducing verb tenses, not worth posting. The simple infinitive in Quenya is just the uninflected aorist form of the verb: cen- → cene “to see”. Tolkien described the infinitive at length in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure composed in the early 1950s: This
Quenya Grammar P59: Stative
In ᴹQ. Fíriel’s Song from the 1930s there are signs of a “stative” verb inflection; I don’t know who coined this term for the Quenya construction. This song has nouns and adjectives with the verb “to be” directly attached in the form of the suffix -ie (LR/72): ᴹQ. mannar Valion:
Quenya Grammar P58: Copula
A “copula” is a linguistic term for a small linking word connecting a subject to a predicative expression. In English, the copula is the verb “to be”: “Elrond is a man; Elrond is old”. In Quenya, the verb ná- may be used as a copula, but it is often optional.
Quenya Grammar P57: Irregular Verbs
Quenya verbs show a number of irregularities and unexpected behaviors, especially in the past and present tenses. However, there are some verbs that, because of phonological peculiarities or their foundational natures, are more irregular than usual. Tolkien mentioned this in the Quenya Verbal System of the 1940s: There are a
Quenya Grammar P56: Inceptive Verbs
The “inceptive” verbs were intransitive verbs formed from an adjective or verb with the sense of “begin to, grow, become”, as in: “begin to fall”, “grow pale”, “become light, lighten”. Inceptives can be broken up into two groups: verbal inceptives and adjectival inceptives. Verbal inceptives are formed from verb roots,
Quenya Grammar P55: u-verbs
The u-verbs are a class of verbs whose stem combines a biconsonantal root (like √KEL) with a suffixal -u: [ᴹQ.] celu-. These verbs often (but not always) have an “inceptive” aspect, like [ᴹQ.] seru- “to settle on, sit or lie down” vs. [ᴹQ.] ser- “to rest”. As Tolkien described them
Quenya Grammar P54: a-verbs
The a-verbs are a class of verbs whose stem combines a biconsonantal root (like √TAN) with a suffixal -a: tana-. These verbs often (but not always) have an inherently “continuous” aspect, like ala- “grow” or fara- “hunt”. This class of verbs has less need to distinguish an instant action (“I
Quenya Grammar P53: TALAT-stem Verbs
The talat-stem verbs are derived from primitive verbal roots of the form √TALAT, but are classified differently from the basic verbs because phonological forces resulted in very different conjugations. In the end, their conjugations ended up close to the half-strong verbs, whereas the most irregular talat-stem verbs tended to abandon
Quenya Grammar P52: Half-strong Verbs
The half-strong verbs use of the same inflections as weak verbs, but have strong past tenses formed by modifying the verb stem. Most verbs with half-strong conjugations are the formative verbs, which are the result of adding the suffixes -t(ă) or -y(ă) to a root. They are most commonly used