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
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
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
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