Quenya has five simple verb tenses: aorist (timeless), past, future, present/imperfect and perfect. Aside from the “default” aorist tense, two of these tenses have to do with time (past and future) and two have to with the verbal aspect of the action: imperfect (an ongoing action not yet complete) and
Quenya Grammar P74: Perfective Adjective
In addition to the active participle (-(i)la) and the passive participle (-ina), Tolkien discussed a third suffix -nwa, which he variously labeled a “passive suffix”, a “perfective adjective” or a “perfective participle”. The perfective participle. This was formed with -nwa. It originally was not passive or active but denoted the
Livestream in 2 hours!
I’ll be livestreaming on Twitch in 2 hours (Noon-30 Mountain Time; here is a time-zone converter). I’ll be talking about Tolkien’s languages, learning them, what I’ve been sewing and why, and my cat will likely come join us at some point. See you there!
Quenya Grammar P73: Passive Participles
The Quenya passive participle resembles the English past participle: matina “eaten”. When a passive participle is used as an adjective (i matina massa “the eaten bread”), the modified noun functions like the object of the verbal action (“the eaten bread” is thing that was eaten). The basic suffix for passive
Quenya Grammar P72: Active Participles
Note: I skipped P71 because it is just small bridge chapter introducing participles. The Quenya active participle resembles the English present participle: matila “eating”. When an active participle is used as an adjective (i matila atan “the eating man”), the modified noun functions like the subject of the verbal action
Quenya Grammar P70: Verb Inflections
Tolkien often distinguished verb conjugations (for the various verb tenses: aorist, present, past, perfect, future) from what he called “verb inflections”. These inflections are added to the tense stem, and came in three types: The subject suffixes: -n(ye), -l(ye), -s etc. The object suffixes: -s, -t. Agreement for number: plural
Eldamo 0.7.6 Released
I’ve released Eldamo 0.7.6: https://eldamo.org/ I’ve added a bunch of Quenya Grammar entries and tweaked the search help show it shows up until you search for something.
Quenya Grammar P69: Future
The Quenya future tense refers to events occurring in the future: i nér matuva, matuvan “the man will eat, I will eat”. The English future tense uses a helping verb “will”, but the Quenya future tense has its own conjugation, with the suffix -uva. Origins of the Future Tense: Tolkien
Quenya Grammar P68: Long Perfect
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