In the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) of the late 1940s, Tolkien described a “long perfect” that developed along the same lines as the Quenya pluperfect (past perfect): A weak “pluperfect” was made in Quenya, by adding to the perfect participle the past-suffix -nḗ. So karnelyane “I was having made =
Quenya Grammar P67: Perfect
The perfect tense in Quenya indicates an action that has been completed before the present time. In English, the perfect tense is usually expressed with an auxiliary verb “has” or “have”, as in (past) “ate” vs. (perfect) “has eaten” from the verb “to eat”. In Quenya, the perfect tense has
Quenya Grammar P66: Past
The Quenya past tense is, like in most languages, used to refer to events occurring in the past: i nér mante, manten “the man ate, I ate”. Of all the Quenya tenses, the past is the most complex in its formation. Origins of the Past Tense: The Quenya past tense
Quenya Grammar P65: Frequentative
Common Eldarin had another competing syntax for indicating continuous action, a “frequentative” form made by reduplicating the initial part of the verb stem; I use the term frequentative for this formation based on the gloss of the verb sisíla- “shine (frequentative)” (MC/223). This formation (perhaps) became the present continuous tense
Quenya Grammar P64: Present
The present tense is used to describe ongoing actions occurring in the present moment: “the man is eating, I am eating”, i nér máta, mátan. Anything occurring in the present moment is generally an ongoing action, and the Quenya present tense can be more accurately labeled the present continuous or
Quenya Grammar P63: Aorist
The function of the aorist tense in Quenya most closely resembles the simple present form in English: “the man eats, I eat”, i nér mate, matin. It is not, strictly speaking, tied to the present moment, however. More accurately the Quenya aorist is not tied to any particular time at
Quenya Grammar P62: Gerunds
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 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.