P79 is skipped because it is another small bridge chapter introducing verbal moods. Both English and Quenya make use of “impersonal” verbs, which are verbs with no determinate subject. An obvious example in English is “it rains”. The verb “rains” describes the entire action, and there is not really any
Quenya Grammar P78: Verbal Adjectives
Aside from participles, there are a number of other common mechanisms for forming adjectives from verbs, but these were not part of formal conjugation and unlike participles could not interact with the system of tenses. -ima: Probably the best known the verbal adjective suffixes, -ima is used to express possibility,
Quenya Grammar P77: Verbal Nouns
P76 was skipped because it is just a short entry introducing verbal nouns and adjectives. Aside from gerunds, there are a number of other mechanisms that were widely used in Quenya for forming nouns from verbs, but these were not strictly speaking part of verb conjugation. Abstract noun endings: Quenya
Quenya Grammar P75: Compound Tenses
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.