i Héru aselye (VT43:28) - Dominus Tecum - the Lord is with Thee.

A short inquiry into a prepositional complement.

Let's look at the English sentence first. _The Lord is with Thee_ is a
nominal sentence. _Is_ here seems to represent the copula, not a full
verb. More likely so, because we have probably to think of the
association not as strictly speaking spatial or temporal but (also)
metaphorical. The subject of the sentence is clearly _The Lord_. The
occurrence of an object in a sentence is governed by the predicate of
that sentence. The copula doesn't allow for an object. What, then, is
_with Thee_ ? Well, I think it's used predicatively just as _great_ in
_God is great_ or _grass is green_. As it stands with the copula it is
by necessity a subject predicate, just as in e.g. _Jon is a student_.
It describes God.

Now for the grammatical encoding.

How then is it, that in most modern European languages prepositions
demand inflected nouns after them? The answer to that, I believe, is
that all those languages carry historical vestiges in their innards
that survive, with the *function* of the prepositions having
(gradually) changed over time. What are prepositions and how did they
work historically ?

As can be gleaned from information provided by the oldest attested
I.-E. languages (namely Vedic, Hittite and Greek) PIE did not have
preposition strictu sensu. Rather those (as it appears now) little
words were used adverbially or adnominally rather freely. The important
thing, however, is, that they were originally *inflected nouns". Cf.
*_(s)up-o_ (with *-o as directive), *_(s)uper(i) (with *-er(i) as
locative) and *_per-i_ (locative *-i, cf. also Hittite _per_ "house").
Combining one inflected noun (later: preposition) with another demands
(more or less) complex syntax. Now, how did this system work ? Many
notions that are expressed by prepositions in many modern European
languages, weren't in PIE. Rather, they were expressed by means of
(case) endings. Modern examples will be from English:
To say "with" (sociative) e.g. Vedic would use the instrumental, cf.
Rigveda 1.1.5b _devó devébhir aá gàmat "the god (Agnih) shall come
(here) *with the gods*. "With" is expressed by the instrumental pl.
_-bhih_. Similarly Rigveda 1.1.4b: _sá íd devésù gacchati_ "It is
verily he (Agnih) who walketh amongst (the) gods. With _devesu_ loc.
pl. of _devah_ "god".

These two examples should illustrate what I mean. Now, when PIE used
"prepositions" more complex things resulted, as they were themselves
inflected. Let's take an English sentence: _He walked out of the room_.
If PIE would have used a "preposition" in such a context, the English
equivalent would have been something like: "He walked from the room
(gen./abl.) to the outside". Likewise, _with you_ didn't require a
preposition at all. With a preposition something like _together you-at_
= "with you" can be imagined. Now we can see two things 1) Modern
prepositional phrases are *over-characterized". Case endings do
indicate differences in usage (although not typically in English but
cf. German _im Haus_ vs _ins Haus_ "in the house vs into the house")
but, at any rate, they work differently than they did then. 2) An
accusative or dative must also be interpreted as directional cases.
Case endings are much smaller units in PIE. Case endings themselves
seem to (at least some) derive from postposition. To be very brief,
these endings were more like Quenya prepositions (it would seem to me).
They are always attached to previously inflected forms.

So, we see that in Quenya, with its prepositions _ó_ and _as_
apparently not being inflected for case, there is no reason whatsoever
to suppose the (pro)nouns governed by them were necessarily in an
oblique case (unless double marking occurred or a special movement was
to be indicated). _-elye_ in _aselye_ has neither the function (syntactically)
of an object in the sentence, nor seems there to be a reason for _as-_ or
_ó_ to take a specific case.

[But as Pat Wynne has already shown
(<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/413>)
the attested form _óni_ (with optional full, and apparently nominative, form
_onye_; VT43:29), if the result of regular phonological development, must
be due to the old accusative form (or else we would expect **_óne_). And
other forms in the same chart -- e.g., _óle_ (with optional nominative form
_olye_),  _óme_, _óte_, etc. -- could also have originally arisen from
accusative forms with lengthened vowels (and, in the cases of _óme_ and
_óte_, the pronominal part corresponds formally with attested, specifically
accusative, independent forms, sc. _me_ (VT43:8) and _te_ (LR:932),
repsectively). That being said, the optional full forms may indicate a
tendency towards later levelling of the prepositional pronouns to
nominative forms; and in this regard it is noteworthy that other
prepositional charts on the same page (VT43:36n.1) do show full,
apparently nominative, pronominal forms in positions where the first
chart has short forms. CFH]

It remains, however, possible that Tolkien simply mimicked the
situation in I.-E.  languages of the stage of Latin, Early Germanic
etc. without really giving much considerations to the syntactical
nature of prepositions. Still, there is a good chance he did. Lastly,
to be able to really judge matters in Quenya, it would be important to
know whether the accusative in Quenya served any "directional" purpose
as well.

Excursus:

Grammatical encoding is ultimately motivated and triggered by
semantics, thematic roles. However, every system once established,
focuses on certain aspects, while not marking others. Ironically, my (I
think wrong) point to equate subject = agent, so booed at, is the only
way, I think, to describe _with Thee_ as an object. Note, however, that
this is not correct. Rather, on a thematic level _with Thee_
accumulates a substantial number of (proto-) patientoid
characteristics, while _The Lord_ is clearly a (Proto-) Agent. Typical
features of an agent are, among others, +control, +instigation, while
the typical patient lacks those features. While it may be argued that
Saint Mary "instigated" God's being with her because of her comport and
pureness, she certainly didn't control it. While God clearly is the one
who wills, "instigates" and controls the action.

David Kiltz

P.S.: I would like to ask those concerned to forgive me the somewhat
eruptive style of previous replies.
P.S.2: For those interested in that sort of craziness: Some time ago
(when I was less busy) I translated the ring poem into Syriac:
http://kiareh.bei.t-online.de/PDFs/Ring_Verses_in_Syriac.pdf.
Note there is a mistake in line 3: It should be _labnainosho_. Also,
the Syriac font is less than perfect.

We have
1 the _logical_ opposition of _subject_ and _predicate_, the underlying concept
and the statement made about it.
In "Eric kills Edgar" EITHER noun could be the subject, according to what is
required by the syllogism:

(Eric as subject:)
"Eric kills Edgar"
"Whoever kills Edgar or captures him deserves a reward"
ergo:
"Eric deserves a reward"

(Edgar as subject:)
"Eric kills Edgar"
"Whomever Eric kills, dies quickly and gets a decent burial"
ergo:
"Edgar dies quickly and gets a decent burial"

2 the _grammatical_ opppositions:
main noun - attribute (the genitive or adjective or apposited noun constructed
in congruence with noun)
_The car_ - _of Eric_
_The blue_ - _car_
_The Rolls Royce_ - _car_
(_Car_ main noun in all phrases)

subject - predicate (the verb constructed in congruence with the subject)
_Eric_ - _kills [Edgar]_
_Edgar_ - _is killed [by Eric]_
NB:
older terminology called both main noun and subject "suppositum"
both adjective, apposition and predicate "appositum"
and genitive "appositum ex obliquo", which term might make some sense for
objects, adverbials of circumstance and agents too

subject - object (the opposite of the subject in an active construction, the
noun that would have been subject of the opposite verb, same concept with
opposite construction)
_Eric_ - _[kills] Edgar_
subject - agent (the opposite of the subject in a passive construction)
_Edgar_ - _[is killed] by Eric_
subject/predicate - adverbial of some circumstance
_Eric killed Edgar_ - _yesterday_

3 the _thematic_ or _semantic_ oppositions:
agent - patient (whatever thing is brought to being or modified in being by
agent)
_Eric_ - _Edgar_
sense object - sensor (whoever or whatever animal senses the sense object)
advantage - the one to whose advantage it is - [benefactor]
disadvantage - etc
thing/action - circumstance thereof (time, place, et c...)
_Eric killed Edgar_ - _yesterday_

These distinctions and oppositions do NOT coincide perfectly, but rather
overlap, and they overlap differently in different languages.

If you regard the ergative case in ergative languages as a special kind of
nominative or if you regard it as an instrumental of agent of essentially
passive constructed verbs, though logically the subject, is beside the point of
this general outline of necessary grammatical distinctions and their partial
overlapping with logic and semantics.

A consistent international teminology does not really exist.

In English a verb or a preposition takes an object. In other languaeges only
verbs do. In German a _Präpositionsobjekt_ is the object of a verb, marked by a
preposition rather than an oblique case in its pure form:

_Er wurde WEGEN DES TODSCHLAGS  ZUR TODESSTRAFE verurtheilt_ (_He was sentenced
FOR MANSLAUGHTER TO DEATH PENALTY_) is a forensic sentence with two
_Präpositionsobjekte_ in a row.

Ordinarily the noun after a preposition is not called _Präpositionsobjekt_ but
just a _Hauptwort mit einer Präposition_, _noun with a preposition_. Introducing
the term _Objekt eiener Präposition_, _object of a preposition_ would cause
confusion in German grammatical terminology, since it would make people call
things _Präpositionsobjekt_ when all they meant was _object of a preposition_.

A subject however is in origin a logical term, meaning the underlying: what
underlies any statement is what the statement is about. In logic, as distinct
from grammar, there is no special formal requirement on cases or moods involved.

And in many languages that _usually_ comes out by what the verb conjugates in
congruence with (finite moods with nominative, some infinite moods with some
oblique cases). That is where the concept of grammatical subject comes in.

If you have an impersonal verb, you do not have any real subject, only objects.
But you may have logical subjects: what would have been logically the subject of
the finite verb if it had had a meaning requiring another thematic role for
subject.

Lith. (I use sh as transcription of s-hachek):
_man reishkia atsakyti_ (_for-me is-necessary to-answer_) has no noun or pronoun
in the nominative, only one in the dative, marking the one (in this case _me_)
who has the disadvantage to need answering or to whom it is a necessary
advantage to answer.

If one had had another verb, like simple _answer_, or modal _can answer_ one
would logically have said:
_ash atsakau_ (_I answer_)
_ash galiu atsakyti_ (_I am able to answer_)
which makes _man_ the logical, but not grammatical, subject of
_man reishkia atsakyti_ (_for-me is-necessary to-answer_=_I must answer_)
Grammatically _man_ remains the dative object of _reishkia_.

And if you say:
_ash megstu kâva_ (_I like coffee_)
or (somewhat unidiomatically for such a material thing as drink)
_man patinka kavà_ (_me pleases coffee_)
the first person has the same thematic role which would logically have made him
the subject in the second sentence if _patikti_ had meant something about the
person feeling liking.

In Russian you tend to avoid passive verbs. Instead of saying the Russian
equivalent of
_This gazette is much read_
(passive construction, where _this gazette_ is subject of _is much read_)
you would say
_This gazette much [they] read_
(active construction, where _this gazette_ is object of _[they] read much_)

But as in good logic, independently of the construction, _this gazette_ is what
you are talking about and _[they] read it_ is what you are saying about it, you
can call _this gazette_ - thematically the patient or sense object of the act of
reading, grammatically the accusative object of the verb _[they] read_ - the
logical subject of the sentence, since it would logically have been the subject
if Russian had here used a verb with passive construction. Of course there would
be this possibility of making grammatical subject coincide with logical subject
to use a verb with passive construction, like a reflexive verb:
_This gazette reads-itself much_
but I think that might be somewhat less idiomatic. Not that I really know
Russian, but I gathered so from reading a Russian grammar a few hours ago.

And when I said above that adverbials of circumstance - and concomitance with a
certain other person is such a thing - would have been _apposita ex obliquo_ in
the older grammatic terminology (say 14th C), I took my stand also against
regarding them as expressable by a nominative as such, i.e. a noun which is the
main noun of the noun phrase or the noun without a phrase which is the
_suppositum_ of a verb, the subject of a sentence.

Even if the prepositions of Quenya were conjugated exactly as verbs, that would
not be a clear case for regarding the pronominal endings as nominatives:
- A, because they do not correspond in sense to nominatives but rather to some
general oblique case
- B, because we cannot infer from the fact that finite verbs are constructed in
congruence with nominative nouns or separate pronouns that pronominal endings
stand for pronouns in the nominative, etymologically, so the coincidence of
(even active) conjugation of verbs with conjugation of prepositions would not
mean the latter were prepositions with nominatives. In Turkish the conjugation
of verbs coincides with the possessive pronominal endings, as far as I can
recall my language typology textbooks. Anyone fluent in Turkish please correct
me if I am wrong!

Hans Georg Lundahl

Gå före i kön och få din sajt värderad på nolltid med Yahoo! Express

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

David Kiltz <dkiltz@...> wrote:

> i Héru aselye (VT43:28) - Dominus Tecum - the Lord is with Thee.

> The copula doesn't allow for an object. What, then, is _with Thee_ ? Well,
> I think it's used predicatively just as _great_ in _God is great_ or
> _grass is green_. As it stands with the copula it is by necessity a subject
> predicate, just as in e.g. _Jon is a student_. It describes God.

There is a difference between an _appositum ex recto_ like:
_God_ in _The Lord is God_
_thou_ in _The Lord art thou, O Jesu!_
_great_ in _The Lord is great_
_the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost_ in
_The Lord is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost_

and an _appositum ex obliquo_ like:
_with thee_ in _The Lord is with thee_
_of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob_ in
_The Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob_

The former describe God in himself, the latter in relation to others, and the
_apposita ex oblquo_ are oblique cases of precisely those others.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Gå före i kön och få din sajt värderad på nolltid med Yahoo! Express

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Donnerstag, Mai 15, 2003, at 03:49  Uhr, David Kiltz wrote:

> They are always attached to previously inflected forms.

*Uninflected* forms, of course.

-David Kiltz

I'm sorry, but I think the moderators are right: we should return to JRRT. In
fact,
Russian has FAR MORE passive constructions, than English! The reflexive
construction for passive IS used often, and there are two passive participles
(past and present), not one as in English or German. But that's off topic,
indeed.

So let's resume after David's "What are prepositions and how did they work
historically ?", looking at JRRT's notions. He often called them (or the
particles
from which they evolved) "adverbial elements". Just a few examples:

Q&E, root *AWA. Adverbs _oa_, _oar_, survived in Sindarin as a preposition
_o_ (from, of) (XI:366).

*HO: "ancient adverbial element, occurring principially as a proclitic or
enclitic",
it was the origin of a verbal prefix or a case-marker _-o_ (XI:368).

*WO: the origin of a verbal prefix, not surviving as a word according to Q&E
(XI:367), but obviously the origin of the preposition _ó/o_ mentioned in the
earlier
translations of prayers (VT43:29).

From Adunaic (at the same time that Tolkien played with pronominal prefixes
in Quenya): the normal case of nouns (zero marking) is also "the base to which
certain adverbial 'prepositional' affixes are added; such as _ô_ 'from', _ad_,
_ada_
'towards', _mâ_ 'with', _zê_ 'at'." (IX:429). This is extremely interesting,
because
all of it has obvious parallels in Quenya. Remember the suffix _-ma_ for
instruments with which you do something, or _má_ 'hand'. Remember the
preposition _sê_ 'at' (VT43:30), or the locative ending _-sse_, which appeared
as _-ze_ occasionally.

Since prepositions modify the relation of a verb to its object, they ARE
adverbial.
This relation could as well be described by an inflection of the object (and the
role of objects IS usually marked by inflections), so they are redundant, in
principle.
BUT redundancy is built into language naturally. Moreover, inflections have a
tendency
of fading away in languages like the modern Germanic or Romance languages or
Sindarin. Then, the burden lays more and more heavily on the adverbial particles
placed between verb and object, and so they become PREPOSITIONS, i.e. words
PLACED BEFORE objects. Of course, they can have this role before, in heavily
inflected languages like Russian or Latin or Quenya. They are connected with
objects, however, with inflected nouns or pronouns, and since they (for semantic
reasons) combine only with certain inflections, a synchronic view may be that
they "govern" a case, or that the object is the object of a preposition. No,
they
don't/aren't, the defining factor is the verb and its relation to the object.

Hans

Sorry for the barrage of membership messages. A glitch due to an inattentive
moderator and a rude (now ex-)member.

Carl

On Freitag, Mai 16, 2003, at 10:39  Uhr, Hans wrote:

> *HO: "ancient adverbial element, occurring principially as a proclitic
> or enclitic",
> it was the origin of a verbal prefix or a case-marker _-o_ (XI:368).

This refers probably to the genitive in _-o_, pl _-on_ and probably
also the "ablative" _-Vllo_. In the latter case, _3o_ or _ho_  is
assimilated to the shorter form _-Vl_ (cf. Entu, Ensi, Enta Declension
VT36:8). _-o(n)_ is attached to the noun either in singular or plural
respectively. But is it attached to a specific case ? The question,
perhaps, can be answered by looking at the chart of the Entu, Ensi,
Enta declension. The first three lines run thus:

1) entu ensi enta en
2) ento ente enta en
3) ento ente etta enda.

The authors of VT36 take the first line to represent the nominative on
the ground of general considerations. I.e., conventionally, the nom. is
written first in any chart. The second row, then, is taken to represent
the forms of the acc. Lastly, the third row is considered as
representing an alternative genitive.

While I agree on the first row, I do not think the interpretation of
the 2. and 3. row likely.

Firstly, the difference between 1 and 2 in masc, and fem., namely
_-tu_, _-si(<ti)_ vs _-to_, _-te_ finds its exact correspondents in the
demonstratives _su/so_. _si/se_ (cf. Et:385 sub S-). The entry in the
Etymologies indicates that the distinction between _su/so_ is not one
of case. Hence the same is likely for _entu_ and _ento_. A possible
distinction might be that one form refers to actual males/females while
the other is used more metaphorically. But that's pure speculation at
this point. It may also be suggestive that pure _en_ occurs in the
first two rows, whereas an (old) accusative is normally characterised
by V+ (e.g. nom. _cirya, vs ac. _ciryá_). We find such a + form in the
third row (_enda_). Note, however, that (en) is given as variant (?).
Lastly, the assumption of an "uninflected" genitive for Quenya seems a
little flawed to me.

Things such as _airetári-lírinen_ or _ambar-metta_ should rather be
treated as compounds. The hyphen seems to indicate that, while such
compounds could apparently be formed rather freely in Quenya. Two
elements of a compound can have various relations. Where two nouns are
involved the most frequent (virtual) case relation is that of a
genitive. That means simply that, the first element functions as an
attribute to the second. So, the fact that _ambar-metta_ can, of
course, be paraphrased as _metta i ambaro_ doesn't allow for the
assumption of an endingless genitive. Note that in Indo-European
languages compounds where the first member is indeed inflected occur.
However, they aren't in a majority. The older the language the less
likely this is to happen.

The authors also note a difference in English between _Here is her
book_ and _the book he has is hers_(VT36:20). I don't see how this is
related to the issue. Suffice it to say that both _her_ and _hers_ are
inflected forms. Also, they don't normally appear in compounds. (Unless
there is a "her-cat" next to a "she-cat"). So I take it the latter
examples or English pronouns strictly refer to the use of the pronoun
_enta_ etc.. Still, how would such a distinction (attributive vs
predicative) work with a *demonstrative* pronoun. Note that _his_ and
_her_ are possessive pronouns. That is, they are inherently
"genitival". The formal distinction _her_ vs _hers_ is a very late
innovation to avoid confusion with _her_ (=acc/dat.). E.g. **the book
is her = she is the book. There is no distinction for _his_ or _its_
since they're unambiguous. Cf. also _I see the colour of that yonder_
vs _this is the colour of that yonder_. I don't see how you would fit
_enta_ vs _entan_ in here.

In other Germanic languages we find strong and weak forms of the
adjective in these functions but that doesn't bear on the matter. That
means, in my eyes, there is no base for the assumption of a third
"genitive" case.

In my view, the third row must be regarded as representing the
accusative. If this is correct, we can also answer the question to what
"case" (if any) Quenya inflectional suffixes are attached to. If,
indeed, the third form in the third row _etta_ is an accusative, then
it seems clear that this is not a derivational basis since the
inflected forms of _enta_ all show the stem _ent-_ (with one noticeable
exeption: _etya_).

So it would seem likely, that also _-o_ was not attached to the
accusative. But what about _-ho_ ? It was apparently attached to _-Vl_.
This _Vl_ must, it would seem, contain an element _l_ since a final d
would have > r in auslaut. Or maybe *_Vd+3V_ > _VllV_ can be assumed?
Maybe via *_VddV_. What do you think ?

> Since prepositions modify the relation of a verb to its object, they
> ARE adverbial.

Unless, of course, we're dealing with a NOMINAL SENTENCE in which case
they are ADNOMINAL.

David Kiltz

In message 438, David Kiltz discusses the so-called "_Entu_, _Ensi_,
_Enta_ Declension", first presented and analyzed by Christopher Gilson
in _Vinyar Tengwar 36. A few comments:

> The authors of VT36 take the first line to represent the nominative on
> the ground of general considerations. I.e., conventionally, the nom.
> is written first in any chart. The second row, then, is taken to
> represent the forms of the acc.

This last is a very flat statement, concealing a considerable amount of
the actual process of arriving at the proposal that the second row
reflects the accusative inflection, which in fact involves (VT36:18-19)
a detailed formal and structural comparison between the two halves of
the chart in question; i.e. between the inflection of _entu_, _ensi_,
_enta_, _en_, and that of the apparently dual forms of a stem _as-_
(perhaps from demonstrative *_sa-_ 'that' or 'it'; cf. N _ha_ 'it'
(V:385), Q _san_ 'then', i.e. *'at that (time)' (MC:216), and, perhaps,
the conjunction _sa_ 'that' in the so-called "_Merin_ Sentence", for
which see: <http://www.elvish.org/elm/merin.html>).

> Lastly, the assumption of an "uninflected" genitive for Quenya seems a
> little flawed to me. Things such as _airetári-lírinen_ or
> _ambar-metta_ should rather be treated as compounds.

Were those the only examples of an uninflected genitive cited by Chris
in forming his argument, I might agree with you. However, Chris also
cited two other, very clear, examples (VT36:20): _Valinóre Yénie_ 'the
Annals of Valinor' (X:200), and _Coron Oiolaire_ 'Mound (of)
Ever-Summer' (S:357).


|======================================================================|
| Carl F. Hostetter      Aelfwine@...     http://www.elvish.org |
|                                                                      |
|                ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.                  |
|                      Ars longa, vita brevis.                         |
|            The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.             |
|    "I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take      |
|    such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."   |
|======================================================================|


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In lambengolmor@yahoogroups.com, David Kiltz <dkiltz@g...> wrote:

> On Freitag, Mai 16, 2003, at 10:39  Uhr, Hans wrote:
>
>> *HO: "ancient adverbial element, occurring principially as a proclitic
>> or enclitic",  it was the origin of a verbal prefix or a case-marker _-o_
>> (XI:368).
>
> This refers probably to the genitive in _-o_, pl _-on_ and probably
> also the "ablative" _-Vllo_.

No, this refers to the page I quoted, where we further read that the ancient
adverbial element occurred  also  as "enclitic, as attached to noun stems (the
usual place for the simpler 'prepositional' elements in PQ)." (XI:368)  Since
medial _h_ was lost, this became _-ô_, a genitive inflexion, properly a
partitive genitive. I didn't have in mind the ablative.

> In the latter case, _3o_ or _ho_  is assimilated to the shorter form _-Vl_
> (cf. Entu, Ensi, Enta Declension VT36:8).

VT36 doesn't say so, and I doubt it, honestly speaking. The shorter
form with _Vl_ is more likely the result of loss of a final vowel, imho.

> _-o(n)_ is attached to the noun either in singular or plural respectively.
> But is it attached to a specific case ?

In the sentence quoted above, JRRT spoke of "noun stems", not nouns
having an inflectional suffix already.

> 1) entu ensi enta en
> 2) ento ente enta en
> 3) ento ente etta enda.
>
> The authors of VT36 take the first line to represent the nominative on
> the ground of general considerations.

That's not entirely true: Chris Gilson compared the chart against others,
like the Bodleian Declensions and the Plotz Letter, and made a rather
convincing observation concerning the first row of the lower, obviously
dual part. By the way, the conclusion was that the first row is a subjective
case, that is not necessarily the unmarked case, the one which is the base
for inflexions. It was not unmarked in the Bodleian Declensions, but had a
suffix _-n_ in the singular.

> demonstratives _su/so_. _si/se_ (cf. Et:385 sub S-). The entry in the
> Etymologies indicates that the distinction between _su/so_ is not one
> of case

It doesn't indicate that in my copy. Instead, there are listed three N
forms _ho_, _hon_, _hono_ for "he", three _he_, _hen_, _hene_ for "she"
and two _ha_, _han_ for "it". Alternative forms or cases? They are followed
by three plurals _huin_, _hîn_, _hein_. Are they alternative forms of "they"?
Are they the respective plurals of masculine, feminine, neuter gender? Or
are they cases of "they"? The last two forms, _hîn_ and _hein_, look familiar:
_Narvin hain echant_, "Narvi made them", _teithant i thiw hin_ "drew these
signs" (LR: 297) and here _hain_ is certainly accusative, "them", and I
wouldn't be too much surprised if it's literally "the signs their", genitive.
Now if the last three forms can be different cases, why not _su_/_so_ or
_si_/_se_? Which cases, that would be the question. Certainly the first one
would be a specifically subjective one, denoting a subject, i.e. an animate.

> Lastly, the assumption of an "uninflected" genitive for Quenya seems a
> little flawed to me.

Of course, there's an uninflected (without quotation marks!) genitive in
Quenya. The same page XI:368 says "though 'possession was indicated by
the adjectival suffix -va, or (especially in general descriptions) by a 'loose
compound'... Orome róma would mean 'an Orome horn', sc. one of Orome's
horns". The flaw in the argument in VT36 is: if genitive is expressed by
word order here, it doesn't need an inflexion, i.e. it isn't a case at all, much
as accusative vanished from spoken Quenya. Now that doesn't mean that
the genitive was always uninflected and expressed by word order alone,
and it would be reasonable if the remains of those inflexions would show
up in pronouns, not in nouns. So the suggestion in VT36:20 is a
possibility... one of several. My guess would be, that the first two lines, much
as in the Bodleian Declensions, denote subjective and normal cases, which are
not exactly like nominative and accusative: subjective case was marked only
when needed. Quenya became a language of nominative/accusative type only
later, and the subjective/normal case reappeared in Adunaic.

> So it would seem likely, that also _-o_ was not attached to the accusative.

Of course, it wasn't, see above. Those enclitics attached to noun stems, much
as in Adunaic the normal (uninflected) case was (among other things) "the base
to which certain adverbial 'prepositional' affixes are added; such as _ô_
'from',
_ad_, _ada_ 'to, towards', _mâ_ 'with', _zê_ 'at'." (IX:429) It's very
interesting
how many of the early concepts of Quenya entered into Adunaic, and how
many of them resurfaced after its abandoning.

Hans

Patrick Wynne wrote in response to Hans' wish "to see some evidence
why _-ni, -le_ are accusative in form":

> One reason for assuming _óni_ contains acc. _-ni_ is phonological,
> and a key piece of evidence occurs in the very sentence Hans cites:
> _tye-meláne_ 'I love thee' (V:61). The Etymologies gives the base
> of 'I' as NI- (2), and a consistent phonological rule throughout the
> external history of Q(u)enya is that original short final _*-i_
> becomes _-e_, e.g. *_liñwi_ 'fish' > Q _lingwe_ (V:369 s.v. LIW-).

**However, it must be noted that development of monosyllabic
words (MWs) differed from development of polysyllabic ones.
For instance, it seems that certain short vowels were lost finally
(cf. _abaro_ > CE _abar_, WJ/XI:371). This could not happen in MW,
because the very word would be lost then. Also, we know that long
vowels were reduced to short ones finally. However, MWs seem not
to reduce them, cf. _ní_ "woman" < NÍ (Etym) or _vá_, apparently
from _bá_ (WJ/XI:370). The Plotz Letter informs us that "all long
vowels were reduced to short vowels finally" in Spoken Quenya.
Again MWs seem not follow the rule, because we have _sí_ "now"
in "_Namárie_", for instance.

> Thus it is likely that the subject pronoun _-ne_ 'I' in _tye-
> meláne_is from earlier *_-ni_.

**That is certainly possible (though the subject pronoun for
"I" could have been simply *_-ne_ then (i.e. with the original
_e_, not from _i_)).

I think we do not have explicit examples of development of final
short _-i_ in MWs, but it is possible that even in them the _-i_
turned to _-e_. Or at least in the Etym (and _Lost Road_) era.
We may also note that Etym gives _no_ "under", apparently from
*_nu_. This would then show change of final _-u_ to _-o_
(parallel to change of _-i_ to _-e_) in a MW. Nevetheless, "_Namárie_"
gives _nu_ "under" instead. If we suppose that the "_Namárie_"
version of the preposition has the same origin, i.e. *_nu_, then it
might be that Tolkien changed his mind and decided that vowels
(or at least _u_ and _i_) did not undergo any change. Of course, the
origin of _nu_ might have been *_nó_, but we should then ask why
the long vowel was shortened if another long vowel in _sí_ was not.

> Note that the various versions of the Átaremma consistently
> maintain the distinction between nom. _emme_ 'we' and
> acc. _me_ 'us', e.g. _emme avatyarir_ 'we forgive' versus _úa
> mittanya me_ 'do not lead us' in At. I (VT43:8).

In a reply to Beregond Patrick wrote:

> I have shown that _-ni_ in _óni_ must derive from *_-nî_, the
> lengthened vowel strongly suggesting that it is accusative
> ["because *_ô-ni_ would regularly yield **_óne_"]; I have shown
> that _-me_ in _óme_ is identical in form with accusative _me_
> 'us' in the Átaremma and elsewhere, and that _te_ in _óte_
> appears to be identical to accusative _te_ 'them' in _a laita
> te_ 'praise them'. It is not unreasonable then to suppose that
> the other forms in this same chart, _óle_ et al., are based on
> accusative forms as well, with of course the exception of
> _onye, olye_, in which the endings _-nye, -lye_ are attested
> as nominative.

However, _me_ seems to be a nominative form as well, cf. _men_
in the same text. The form is not *_mén_, so it points rather to
nominative. I have mentioned that the form _sí_ "now" did not
undergo the shortening. Now consider _sín_ in SD/IX:310: the
vowel is not shortened when an ending _-n_ is added (whatever
its function). In Etym such a shortening is seen, because the base
SI- lists _sin_ besides _sí_. This is therefore another piece that
suggests that Tolkien changed his mind as regards the development
and behavior of MWs, because the form _sin_ appears in an
earlier version of the _Atalante_ Fragments (see LR/V:46).
Moreover, it is usually nominative (the least marked form) that
acquires case ending (more precisely, it is the least marked form
serves as nominative).

The fact that the reflex of final short CE _-i_ in _-e_ in Quenya is
not, in my view, sufficient for assuming that _-ni_ in an accusative
form, because as I have tried to show the behavior of CE
monosyllabic words is slightly different to the behavior of CE
polysyllabic words.

The question is whether_-ni_, _-le_ etc. in the _ó-_ chart (VT43:29)
are suffixes or whether the _ó-_ is a prefix. What I want to say is
which of the segments could stand alone, that is, which of them is
a separate word -- if any of them.

If _-ni, -le_ etc. are only suffixes and cannot stands as separate words,
I would not speak of them as of nominative or accusative forms but
rather as subject and object forms. Nominative does not necessarily
means subject and accusative does not necessarily mean object. Now
the question is of course whether they are subject or object forms.
It may be they are both (with _nye_ and _lye_ as alternatives).
However, if _ni, le_ etc. are separate words, then we can speak
about nominative and accusative, because the least marked forms
would be nominative from which accusative could be formed.
Nominatives would act as subjects and accusative as (direct) objects
in most cases. Yet here again I do not think we can say whether
they are the former or the latter, since the accusative as a case did
not exist in Spoken Quenya. Now as regards the forms _-s_ and
_-t_ (in _ós_ and _ót_, being variants of _ósa_ and _óta_), they
are hardly separate words. They may be reduced forms of _-sa_
and _-ta_ or plain suffixes, perhaps like _-nye_ and _-lye_, but
these could also perhaps stand alone, cf. _tye_ and _lye_ in _lyenna_.

> Acc. _me_ 'us' occurs in the dual form _met_ 'us two' in _Namárie_ as
> the object of a preposition: _imbe met_ 'between us (two)'.

**If _me_ is an accusative form, we should ask why the long vowel was
here shortened if long vowels seem not to be shortened in MWs. The
same with _met_ -- why is it not *_mét_?

> And I would propose that it is this same acc. _me_ that appears in
> _óme_ *'with us' in the chart cited in VT43:29. Similarly, the pl. pron.
_-te_ in _óte_ on the chart appears to be masculine, [...].

Does it? I think you meant "personal" (_-ta_ being impersonal), at least
this is what is implied from what is said on p. 20 of VT43. But if you really
meant masculine, what would be the corresponding feminine form?


Ales Bican

--- In lambengolmor@yahoogroups.com, Ales Bican <ales.bican@s...> wrote:

> The Plotz Letter informs us that "all long
> vowels were reduced to short vowels finally" in Spoken Quenya.
> Again MWs seem not follow the rule, because we have _sí_ "now"
> in "_Namárie_", for instance.

In fact, the Plotz Letter says so explicitly, the sentence you quoted
continues: "... and before final cons. in words of two or more
syllables". This is obviously connected with stress, remember
that the prefix _ó-_ becomes _o-_ when unstressed (XI:367).
With the retraction of stress, final vowels became unstressed
always, and shortened. This did not necessarily (or never?)
happen in monosyllabic words.

> **That is certainly possible (though the subject pronoun for
> "I" could have been simply *_-ne_ then (i.e. with the original
> _e_, not from _i_)).

I can't see any reason to assume that. The _-ne_ in _meláne_ has a
natural explanation, and in any other case I know of, the form is
_ni_ or derived from it. Let's analyze a few occurrences of the 1.
person sg. pronoun in the corpus:

We have
_ni_  "I" (Arctic Sentence)
_Atarinya_ "my father" (V:61)
_meláne_ "I love" (same page)
_inye_  "I" (same page)
_indo-ninya_ "my heart" (V:72)
_nin_ "me" (same page)
_NI_2 "I" (V:378)

This shows a consistent picture up to Etymologies: _ni_ or _inye_ as
"I", _-nya_ or even _ni-nya_ as possessive suffix, _ni-n_ as dative.
The change *_-ni_ >_-ne_ in final position was purely phonological.
A short pronominal suffix _-n_ is found in numerous entries in
Etymologies, too. Again, this fits into the general picture: short final
vowels (since unstressed) were lost often. So we can see two
alternative developments: *_-ni_ > _-ne_ > _-n_, or instead
strengthening of the suffix _-ne_ > _-nye_. It seems likely that
the possessive suffix was formed by combining _ni_ with the adjectival
suffix _-ya_, *_-niya_ > _-nya_. The pronoun remained through all
stages of Quenya. It appeared as a prefix shortly:

_nilendie_ "I have come" (IX:56)
_nimaruvan_ "I shall dwell" (same page)

The dative form _nin_ "for me" appears in Namárie (LR:368) and in the
late notes on _óre_ (VT41:11). Some time between them, we have the
forms _ónye_ and _óni_. As I said already, the argument that the pronouns
are not nominative (or subjective) in form makes sense, in my opinion.
They shouldn't be, because a subject doesn't need prepositions.

> The fact that the reflex of final short CE _-i_ in _-e_ in Quenya is
> not, in my view, sufficient for assuming that _-ni_ in an accusative
> form, because as I have tried to show the behavior of CE
> monosyllabic words is slightly different to the behavior of CE
> polysyllabic words.

Sure, but _-ni_ attached to anything are two syllables at least. Of
course, Patrick's argument relies on the assumption that the
custom of attaching pronominal suffixes to prepositions (which
obviously did not exist in CE) occurred earlier than the change
of final short -i > -e.

It seems that _ni_ did not occur as a stand-alone word in the corpus
after the Arctic Sentence. _inye_ seems to be derived form an
augmented form *_i-ni_. At least, that would explain the difference
to _elye_ "you" (LR:368).

I'll return to "you" (and other pronouns) in other posts.

Hans

On Samstag, Mai 24, 2003, at 01:10  Uhr, Hans wrote:

>> demonstratives _su/so_. _si/se_ (cf. Et:385 sub S-). The entry in the
>> Etymologies indicates that the distinction between _su/so_ is not one
>> of case
>
> It doesn't indicate that in my copy.

"S- demonstrative stem _su, so_ "he"; _si, se_ "she". What else would
_he_ and _she_ be than nominatives ?

In Sindarin, _hain_ and _hin_ (_i thiw hin_ is certainly "the signs
these") can be used for the accusative. But one shouldn't adduce
Sindarin forms as if they were Quenya, I think.

> Of course, there's an uninflected (without quotation marks!) genitive
> in Quenya. The same page XI:368 says "though 'possession' was
> indicated by the adjectival suffix _-va_, or (especially in general
> descriptions) by a 'loose compound'... _Orome róma_ would mean
> 'an Orome horn', sc. one of Orome's horns".

Of course there isn't. And you just gave the line where Tolkien says
so: 'Loose compound'. That's exactly it. So there is no *case*. The
nominative can be used and the function is indicated by word order.
That means, there are no *formal* markings in such constructions, hence
it is not a case. Unlike the accusative, it was never marked in such
constructions. Please, make a distinction between form and function, I
think it's vital here.

> My guess would be, that the first two lines, much
> as in the Bodleian Declensions, denote subjective and normal cases,
> which are not exactly like nominative and accusative: subjective
> case was marked only when needed. Quenya became a language
> of nominative/accusative type only later, and the subjective/normal
> case reappeared in Adunaic.

I think that is a very good guess. This would chime in with my
assumption that only row 3 represents the accusative. In the inner
history of Quenya, then, the accusative would get the _-t_ only later.

David Kiltz

On Freitag, Mai 23, 2003, at 09:00  Uhr, Ales Bican wrote:

> **If _me_ is an accusative form, we should ask why the long vowel was
> here shortened if long vowels seem not to be shortened in MWs. The
> same with _met_ -- why is it not *_mét_?

Orthotone vs enclitic variants ?

David Kiltz

On Samstag, Mai 24, 2003, at 01:10  Uhr, Hans wrote:

>> In the latter case, _3o_ or _ho_  is assimilated to the shorter form
>> _-Vl_
>> (cf. Entu, Ensi, Enta Declension VT36:8).
>
> VT36 doesn't say so, and I doubt it, honestly speaking. The shorter
> form with _Vl_ is more likely the result of loss of a final vowel,
> imho.

Based on what ? My suggestion seems to be phonetically plausible.
Whereas loss of long -ô seems not.

David Kiltz

On Donnerstag, Mai 22, 2003, at 04:32  Uhr, Carl F. Hostetter wrote:

>> Lastly, the assumption of an "uninflected" genitive for Quenya seems a
>> little flawed to me. Things such as _airetári-lírinen_ or
>> _ambar-metta_ should rather be treated as compounds.
>
> Were those the only examples of an uninflected genitive cited by Chris
> in forming his argument, I might agree with you. However, Chris also
> cited two other, very clear, examples (VT36:20): _Valinóre Yénie_ 'the
> Annals of Valinor' (X:200), and _Coron Oiolaire_ 'Mound (of)
> Ever-Summer' (S:357).

I think the answer is found in Hans post:

> "though 'possession was indicated by the adjectival suffix -va, or
> (especially in general descriptions) by a 'loose compound'... Orome
> róma would mean 'an Orome horn', sc. one of Orome's horns.

As Hans notes, _Orome_ here has genitival function without (overt) case
markings. Such constructions also occur in English: _Mount Doom_ =
"Mount of doom" Hence, we do not have another genitive case here but
probably something that is formally = nominative but functionally a
genitive of possession or association.

David Kiltz

[I agree with your statement regarding functionality, but I would myself be
more expansive than to write that the uninflected genitive "= nominative", as
that seems to imply more than I would commit to. Rather, I would simply
note that uninflected forms in Quenya are used for genitive and nomnative
functions (as well as accusative). Further, I do not agree that we cannot
speak of an uninflected genitive "case"; it seems to me that by your argument,
we can speak neither of nominative nor accusative _cases_ in Quenya, either;
which is clearly not the case (no pun intended). CFH]

--- In lambengolmor@yahoogroups.com, David Kiltz <dkiltz@g...> wrote:

> As Hans notes, _Orome_ here has genitival function without (overt)
> case  markings. Such constructions also occur in English:
> _Mount Doom_ = "Mount of doom" Hence, we do not have another
> genitive case here but probably something that is formally =
> nominative but functionally a genitive of possession or association.

I don't think this is _the_ answer: simply "case" is used in
different meanings. This is not a mistake, but general practice, as
the following quote from the entry "case" in the _American Heritage
Dictionary_ may show:

"11 b. Case In some varieties of generative grammar, the thematic or
semantic role of a noun phrase as represented abstractly but not
necessarily indicated overtly in surface structure. In such
frameworks, nouns in English have Case even in the absence of
inflectional case endings."

Consequently, "nominative" is sometimes used to denote a function,
namely being the subject (JRRT calls that "subjective" in Adunaic,
and it is inflected in that language), and sometimes it may denote
the absence of infectional endings, that's called "normal case" in
Adunaic (and may be used for subjects and direct objects).

The logical flaw in VT36, imho, is the conclusion that since an
*uninflected* genitive exists, the only slightly inflected (but
*inflected*!) third row in the chart could be a genitive. It's
possible, but I don't see sufficient evidence.

[Since as you say it _is_ possible, then it cannot be a logical flaw to
propose it. It would however be a fallacy to say that it was _proven_
to be so, but of course Christopher Gilson never said that. CFH]

As I wrote already, I think Quenya made a subjective/normal
distinction at that time (since even the later "Bodleian Declensions"
do so). This means marking of the subject in cases of ambiguity, so
the marking of direct objects would be superfluous, an accusative
inflexion simply wasn't needed.

The distinction _su_/_so_ may have been one of subjective/normal case
earlier, but at the time of the _Etymologies_, it may have been
reinterpreted already, and the final _-u_ was considered an older
form, replaced by _-o_ later. Cf. the entry ÓROK-: "*_órku_ goblin:
Q _orko_, pl. _orqi_."

Hans

I argued that long vowels in monosyllables were not reduced, even though
the Plotz Letter says that "all long vowels were reduced to short vowels
finally". Hans replied:

> In fact, the Plotz Letter says so explicitly, the sentence you quoted
> continues: "... and before final cons. in words of two or more
> syllables".

**I am aware of it. The whole sentence reads: "all long vowels were
reduced to short vowels finally and before final cons. in words of
two or more syllables". While I think that shortening of long vowels in
monosyllables did not take place even in Book Quenya, I mentioned it,
because it seems to be that the sentence is not purely unambiguous.
Perhaps it could also be read like "all vowels were reduced to short
vowels finally _in all words_ and before final cons. _only_ in
words of two or more syllables".

Speaking of which, there are two things that have made me puzzle
for a long time. Which long vowels in words of two or more syllables
were reduced? The long _í_ from _ei_ in dat. pl. of _lasse_ (sc.
_lassin_) was already reduded in Book Quenya. The other thing is
connected with this: in PL Tolkien also says that the diphthong _ai_
was reduced to _e_. Should we read this that the reduction happened
only finally or both finally and before final cons.? If so, dat. pl.
of _cirya_ should be *_ciryen_, right?

> This is obviously connected with stress, remember
> that the prefix _ó-_ becomes _o-_ when unstressed (XI:367).
> With the retraction of stress, final vowels became unstressed
> always, and shortened. This did not necessarily (or never?)
> happen in monosyllabic words.

**It could happen if monosyllables were unstressed, for instance
when functioning as enclitics.

> > **That is certainly possible (though the subject pronoun for
> > "I" could have been simply *_-ne_ then (i.e. with the original
> > _e_, not from _i_)).
>
> I can't see any reason to assume that. The _-ne_ in _meláne_ has a
> natural explanation, and in any other case I know of, the form is
> _ni_ or derived from it.

**I do not claim I would defend it -- I believe the explation suggested
by Patrick Wynne is the correct one, nevertheless one can never be
sure what Tolkien might have imagined.

[examples of _ni_ forms snipped]

> So we can see two alternative developments: *_-ni_ > _-ne_ > _-n_,
> or instead strengthening of the suffix _-ne_ > _-nye_.

**Or perhaps _-ni+e_ > _-nye_ or, which I find more likely, _-ni+ye_
> _-nye_ (just like _-le+ye_ and ?_ke+ye_ > _tye_).

> It seems likely that the possessive suffix was formed by combining _ni_
> with the adjectival suffix _-ya_, *_-niya_ > _-nya_.

**Or it might have been _-ni+a_ > _-nya_ (note that _-a_ is seen in
_-mma_).

> The dative form _nin_ "for me" appears in Namárie (LR:368) and in the
> late notes on _óre_ (VT41:11). Some time between them, we have the
> forms _ónye_ and _óni_.

**Let me note it is _onye_.

> It seems that _ni_ did not occur as a stand-alone word in the corpus
> after the Arctic Sentence. _inye_ seems to be derived form an
> augmented form *_i-ni_. At least, that would explain the difference
> to _elye_ "you" (LR:368).

**They (_inye_ and _elye_) seem to be emphatic forms showing augmented
stem-vowels comparable to _a-nar_ and _i-sil_.

> I'll return to "you" (and other pronouns) in other posts.

**I hope you will do. Unfortunately, David Kiltz did not return to
his opinion on Cy combinations in Q and PQ as he said he would
(strange reminder, I know : ) .


Ales Bican

--
Jag är hellre glad nu än om 25 år. (Agnes in _Fucking Åmål_)

Today marks the first anniversary of the first posting to the
Lambengolmor list. Looking back, I am _exceedingly_ pleased and
gratified by the course this list has taken, the discussions that its
members have pursued, and the thoughts that you have shared with us.
The extremely high "signal-to-noise" ratio of this list is, I think, an
all too rare example what can be achieved in a public Internet forum
when attentive moderation is strictly applied in the service of a set
of scholarly goals and principles; and the fact that I have in fact had
to do so little moderation over the course of this past year
demonstrates that the good example the members have set greatly
encourages others to follow suit. I also note that the number of
members, now hovering around 500, has far exceeded my expectations for
(by Internet standards) such a rigorous and technical discussion list;
which I take as a hopeful sign. I thank you all for your interest.

I am particularly pleased to see a strong awareness among our
contributors of the _totality_ of Tolkien's linguistic creations, of
the complexity not only of the languages themselves at each stage of
their long Primary-world development, but of the development itself;
and a willingness to accept and navigate that complexity. To that end,
I would like to offer some words that I recently posted in a quite
different context on another list:

"To the extent that we can speak accurately of Quenya and Sindarin as
single entities, it is only as _continuities_ of change over time, i.e.
as _processes_; all else is simply individual snapshots of (most often
only small parts of)  this process, any detail of which may have
persisted from the beginning to the end of that process, or have had no
more extent in that process than the sheet it was written on; and in
some cases there may be no way to tell which of these two extremes is
true of any given detail. But _every_ detail in turn _defined_ Quenya
and Sindarin _at the point it
was written_ (at least), and so reflects an aspect of Tolkien's
linguistic Art, which is _supposed_ to be the common and proper object
of interest pursued by all scholars of Tolkien's languages."

I would also like to take this occasion to look forward by looking back
to one of the very first posts on Lambengolmor, message 16 by Sebastien
Bertho (<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/16>), in
which he says (_inter alia_):

"I hope the list will indeed prove useful and that we'll have the
opportunity to discuss the material recently published (last Parma
Eldalamberon and the latest issues of Vinyar Tengwar). It seems to me
that these publications have been somewhat a little ignored on the
other lists (except as "new words" providers), whereas there are many
very interesting features that would deserve to be discussed."

While I think that a portion of Sebastien's hope has been realized, a
very great part of it has not, particularly as regards the discussion
of the material presented in the past three issues of _Parma_. As I
have said before, we have in these the initial expression of Tolkien's
profoundest linguistic thoughts and aesthetic, upon which _all_ that
would follow was firmly based and, in many ways, was largely mere
variation on the themes set there. It seems strange to me that these
works should continue to be so neglected in scholarly discussion of
Tolkien's Art, and I hope that this list will at least begin to correct
that.


--
=============================================
Carl F. Hostetter   Aelfwine@...   http://www.elvish.org

		    ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.
			        Ars longa, vita brevis.
	         The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
"I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take such
      a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

I am pleased to announce that _Parma Eldalamberon_ issues 11-13 _will_
be reprinted. I can't say just when yet, as we have to work out the
reprinting and ordering procedures, and we're all _very_ busy right now
with preparing lots of new material for publication; but once all is in
place, I'll make an announcement here. Watch the skies!


--
=============================================
Carl F. Hostetter   Aelfwine@...   http://www.elvish.org

		    ho bios brachys, he de techne makre.
			        Ars longa, vita brevis.
	         The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
"I wish life was not so short," he thought.  "Languages take such
      a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

--- In lambengolmor@yahoogroups.com, Ales Bican <ales.bican@s...> wrote:

> **Or perhaps _-ni+e_ > _-nye_ or, which I find more likely, _-ni+ye_
>> _-nye_ (just like _-le+ye_ and ?_ke+ye_ > _tye_).

The latter possibility occurred to me after I sent my post, too.

>> I'll return to "you" (and other pronouns) in other posts.
>
> **I hope you will do.

No need for reminders, here, it's just that time is limited, and I can't return
to it as
soon as I wished. BTW, the idea of a look at pronouns in the original sources at
a
time when fabrications abound (remember the infamous S _-ch_ and
"reconstructions" of independent S pronouns like **_ce_)  is not exactly new. We
find it in TolkLang message 7.90, for instance, some ten years ago, by Patrick
Wynne. ;) It's interesting to investigate how much we can add, now.

So let's get over it with first person singular, then. Material published since
then
allows us to conclude that it is surprisingly consistent in Elvish languages we
know more or less, i.e. Quenya, Sindarin and Telerin: it's all the same root
NI-.

People may ask "what about _im_ in Sindarin?" There was an attempt by Didier
Willis to construct a common etymology:

[Hiswelókë's Sindarin dictionary (Edition 1.5, Lexicon 0.99)]
_im*_ ['im] pron. "I" LotR/II:IV, LB/354 OS *_imbè_, CE *_iñgwi_, *_iñwi_
(*I-ÑWI, NI)

We may wonder: what evidence do we have for the OS and CE forms?

[We may even wonder what evidence we have for "OS" at all! CFH]

Certainly, *_iñgwi_ > _im_ would be possible in Sindarin (remember entry YA-
in _Etymologies_, GENG-WÂ > _gem_ in N), but I doubt it in Telerin, where we
find possessive _nia_ and allative _nin_ in the sentence _óre nia pete nin_
(VT41:11). Moreover, I can't seem to remember any example for *ÑW > N in
Quenya, and I'm pretty sure the labial element would persist. I just asked that
question at Elfling, and the answer was a reference to _VT_ 21, where
(obviously)
several possible meanings of _ngwin_ were investigated, one of them being
"for me". We know from later evidence (cf. VT43:36) that another meaning
discussed already then is far more likely, "for us", both from the charts of
prepositions with suffixed enclitic pronouns mentioned there, and from
_vomentienguo_ in XI:407.

The same source (VT41:11) gives _Guren bêd enni_, showing that the element
_ni_ survived in Sindarin, too. The suffixes _-n_ for "I" (verbs) or for "my"
(nouns)
support this. Interestingly, we have two different dative/allative forms: _enni_
just quoted, meaning "(to) me", and _anim_ from Gilraen's _linnod_ (LR:1036).

Now the difference _anim_/_enni_ and the translations "for myself"/"(to) me"
suggest an obvious (though VERY speculative) solution: _im_ doesn't literally
mean "I", but "self". Remember that the two occurences of _im_ as a standalone
word are to emphasize a name: _im Narvi_ (LR:298) and _im Tinúviel_ (III:254).

So what do you think?

Hans

--- In lambengolmor@yahoogroups.com, "Hans" <gentlebeldin@h...> wrote:

> People may ask "what about _im_ in Sindarin?" There was an attempt
> by Didier Willis to construct a common etymology:
>
> [Hiswelókë's Sindarin dictionary (Edition 1.5, Lexicon 0.99)]
> _im*_ ['im] pron. "I" LotR/II:IV, LB/354 OS *_imbè_, CE
> *_iñgwi_, *_iñwi_ (*I-ÑWI, NI)

The reconstructed etymology of S. _im_ in Didier's Sindarin dictionary
is actually the work of David Salo. As Didier writes on pg. 8: "The
etymological reconstructions presented in this dictionary are based
on David Salo's research and are introduced by a diamond".

> The same source (VT41:11) gives _Guren bêd enni_, showing that
> the element _ni_ survived in Sindarin, too. The suffixes _-n_ for
> "I" (verbs) or for "my" (nouns)  support this. Interestingly, we
> have two different dative/allative forms: _enni_ just quoted,
> meaning "(to) me", and _anim_ from Gilraen's _linnod_ (LR:1036).

Although this does not directly pertain to Hans's theory that
S. _im_ literally means 'self' rather than 'I', I find it interesting
that the coexistence of two 1 sg. pronominal elements in
Sindarin, _im_ and _ni_, is a concept that goes all the way back
to Goldogrin. In GL we find the independent (and possibly
emphatic) form _im_ 'I' in _im len_ 'I have or am come' (cited s.v.
_len_ (adj.) 'come, arrived', PE11:53). The list of Goldogrin
pronominal prefixes given in PE13:97 includes 1 sg. _ni-_,
which occurs in the form _nin-_ when prefixed to verbs
beginning with a vowel, e.g., _nin·ista feg_ 'I feel ill' (cited
s.v. _ista-_ 'know, am aware, perceive, feel', PE11:52; also
cf. _fêg, feg_ 'bad, poor, wretched', PE11:34).

-- Patrick H. Wynne

In Etymologies we read :

"MAN- holy spirit (one who has not been born or who has passed through
death). Q _manu_ departed spirit; N _mân_. Cf. Q _Manwe_ (also borrowed
and used in N [see WEG])/"

I guess that the root/stem MAN- "holy spirit" is defined by the
sentence "one who has not [?yet] been born or who has [?already]
passed through death".

But _manu/mân_ as "departed spirit" eludes me.

Would it mean "a spirit already passed through death"? That is by
semantical evolution only a part of the original meaning of the stem
was preserved in _manu/mân_. Still "departed spirit" is a strange
expression... for me.

Any thought by someone with English as mother tongue would be welcome.
;-)

Edouard Kloczko

[Like you, I assume that the gloss 'departed spirit' = 'a spirit that
has already passed through death'. The root MANA in QL
apparently had a similar connotation, with derivatives that
included _manimo_ 'Holy soul' and _manimuine_ 'Purgatory' --
these last two forms are more expansively glossed in PME
as 'disincarnate spirit' and 'abiding place of disincarnate
spirit(s)', respectively (PE12:58).

We might suppose that the reason why Q _manu_ 'departed
spirit' seems to refer only to disincarnate spirits _after death_
(not _before birth_) is that this was the primary experience that
Elves (and Men) had with the concept of disincarnate spirits,
i.e. through the death of people they had known and loved,
and in the case of Elves who might again return in incarnated
form. Disincarnate spirits who had never been born would
probably seem a far more nebulous concept to Elves -- one
would not know such spirits as one had known the spirits of
lost loved ones -- thus a concept more rarely used and hence
not included in the general sense of _manu_.

-- PHW]

laurifindil <ejk@...> wrote, re Q _manu_ 'departed spirit'
in the Etymologies:

> ... Still "departed spirit" is a strange
> expression... for me.
>
> Any thought by someone with English as mother tongue would be
> welcome. ;-)

Departed spirit: a spirit that has departed from its body (intransitive
verbs of movement have active past participles formed as the passive
past participle of transitive verbs).

-- Hans

[I should have added, in my original comments to Edouard's post,
that in English one meaning of the verb "depart" is 'to die', and
"departed" is often used to mean 'dead' or 'dead person'. Hence,
Tolkien's 'departed spirit' = 'spirited of one departed', i.e. 'spirit
who has passed through death'. -- PHW]]

> Departed spirit: a spirit that has departed from its body (intransitive
> verbs of movement have active past participles formed as the passive
> past participle of transitive verbs).

I must mention also the latin word 'Manes' that refers to the spirits of
the dead... It seems that Tolkien had this word in mind...



[Pat has asked me to note that in his previous post of today in this thread,
the words 'spirited of one departed' should, of course, read 'spirit of one
departed'. CFH]

____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
ÁðïêôÞóôå ôç äùñåÜí @yahoo.gr äéåýèõíóç óáò óôï http://www.otenet.gr

I wrote:

>> ... Still "departed spirit" is a strange expression... for me.
>>
>> Any thought by someone with English as mother tongue would be welcome. ;-)

My question was addressed to someone speaking English as a mother-tongue not
about the meaning of "departed".

To my knowledge the _usual_ English expression is "a departed soul", not "a
departed spirit", isn't it? Is "departed spirit" an unusual T. construction? A
new
coinage, or not at all. Plain good English.

I do know English... ;-) but it is difficult to "feel" it, when it is not your
mother-
tongue, if an expression is _usual_ or sounds "new" or "weird".

Edouard Kloczko

["Departed spirit" sounds no stranger to my ear than does "departed soul". In
fact,
"departed soul" is the more unusual-sounding. CFH]

It is not entirely obvious, to me, how the various assimilations
referred to as the "consonant mutations" evolved, from both an
internal and external perspective.  Is this (as I suspect) tied directly
into the phonological history of the language's complex evolution,
or is it rather grammatical in origin, which then became displayed
in the sound system of the language as time progressed (from
an internal perspective)?  While I am certain that much if not all
information upon this subject would be highly hypothetical I am
very intrigued and am interested in discussing even the remotest
possibilities. Thanks for your time.

Aaron Shaw

----------

[Tolkien himself answered this question succinctly in a letter
to Richard Jeffery dated 17 December 1972 (#347 in _The Letters
of J.R.R. Tolkien_). He wrote: "The lenitions or 'mutations' of S.
were deliberately devised to resemble those of W[elsh] in phonetic
origin and grammatical use; but are not the _same_ in either
p[honetic] o[rigin] or g[rammatical] u[se]." To this he added
a footnote stating that "though of _phonetic_ origin, [Sindarin
mutations] are used _grammatically_, and so may occur or
be absent in cases where this is not phonetically justified by
descent."

This concept of a series of consonant changes originating via
regular phonetic processes but subsequently generalized into
grammatical rules dates back to the (externally speaking)
earliest form of Sindarin, the "Goldogrin" or "Gnomish" of _The
Book of Lost Tales_. In the Gnomish Grammar (Parma Elda-
lamberon No. 11, p. 7), Tolkien wrote that the Gn. article
_i_ was "followed by 'interior changes'"; thus, for example,
_pand_ 'book', _i-band_ 'the book' (PE11:63), with initial
P > B following the article, which was also the normal phonetic
development of this consonant in "interior" position, e.g.
†_pel_ 'village, hamlet' > _-bel_ in _Tavrobel_, _Darosbel_,
etc. (PE11:64). Tolkien also states in the Gnomish Grammar
that these interior changes were "the normal scheme of
changes and may be referred to under head of 'grammatical
mutation' for it was generalized to a rule and is now used in
many cases not justified purely on phonological grounds.
It is used in a good many other cases besides that of the
article." (PE11:7)

-- Patrick H. Wynne]

On Freitag, Juli 4, 2003, at 08:03  Uhr, Aaron Shaw wrote:

> It is not entirely obvious, to me, how the various assimilations
> referred to as the "consonant mutations" evolved, from both an
> internal and external perspective.  Is this (as I suspect) tied
> directly
> into the phonological history of the language's complex evolution,
> or is it rather grammatical in origin

Patrick H. Wynne already answered your question. Mutations are of
phonological origin. They are due to 'sentence sandhi'. That means if,
e.g., a voiceless plosive 'T' between two vowels 'V' becomes voice 'D',
this does not only happen inside a word but also inside a sentence. So
VTV > VDV but also -V# TV- > -V# DV- (where '#' is the auslaut or end
of a word). To give you a real world example of later
'grammaticalization': In Welsh, adjectives following a feminine noun
were most often lenited, because feminine nouns originally ended mostly
in *_-a_ or *_-i_ (both long). This was extended to all adjectives
following a feminine, even when the preceeding feminine word did not,
originally, end in a vowel. So, while the endings have long been lost,
the grammatical gender can still be identified. Other mutations are to
be explained similarly, e.g. when a proceeding word ended in a nasal
etc..

David Kiltz

Hello,

The Sindarin/Noldorin mutation system is commonly assumed to have arisen
in full parallel with the sound changes that had taken place before the
Sindarin/Noldorin proper system established itself. Now this assumption
rests on the fact that the internal structure of a complex consisting of
a noun and a clitic is quite parallel to that of a standalone word.

While this is, to some extent, true, I wil try to show that the word +
clitic complex is a phonological phrase rather than a phonological word,
and thus their properties differ in certain respects. This is a rather
trivial observation, but I still think it must be taken into
consideration when analysing Sindarin/Noldorin historical phonology.

Bertrand Bellet has dedicated a number of interesting articles to the
history of Sindarin/Noldorin consonant mutations, see, for instance,
Elfling message 12501 or Lambengolmor message 288. Both of these
insightful articles deal, whether primarily or not, with the fact that
the mutation patterns seem to be at variance with the word-internal
sound-changes.

Let me consider one example. In the Lambengolmor message referred to
above (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lambengolmor/message/288), Bertrand
puts forward a number of reconstructed proto-forms for Sindarin nouns in
the genitive qualified by the article. For instance, he cites:

> - "of the word": OS *_ina pettha_ > *_en@ betth@_ > *_en beT_ >
> S *_e-beth_

I find such a derivation plausible (the prehistorical genitive form of
the article *_ina_ (*_inâ_?) is in fact present in the Gnomish Lexicon
(PE11:7)). There is a trouble, as Bertrand himself notes, in the loss of
_n_, which shouldn't have happened, regardless of whether the consonant
were internal or final. He cites, however, the loss of the nasal in an
unstressed prepausal environment in English ('a(n)' vs. 'one'). To this
one can add that nasals tend to be lenes in most languages (Irish and
Scottish Gaelic notwithstanding), and often show a propensity to
disappear (cf. the Welsh _ab_ 'son (in names)' vs. _mab_ 'son' <
*makwos, or the numerous evidence of a weak pronunciation of final
nasals from Latin grammarians). The more interesting question, to my
mind, is the behaviour of that final vowel, which in Bertrand's
reconstruction collapses into a schwa and then disappears.

There can be two different explanations for this. One is regular
word-internal syncope, the other would mean that this is the regular
word-final loss of vowels, and the choice hinges on the presence of a
phonological boundary akin to the one triggering apocope.

The first explanation looks somewhat doubtful to me. Well, we don't know
a lot about the pre-history of Sindarin stress, but I still think the
Sindarin syncope patterns could hardly produce a number of these lost
vowels. First, Sindarin, or rather Noldorin (since most words with
Tolkienian proto-forms come from the Etymologies), syncope tends to
affect first vowels in two adjacent syllables (as in Noldorin *_tarasta_
> _trasta_ (V:391 s.v. TARAS)), or composition vowels in compounds. Thus
I wouldn't expect too many cases of this vowel disappearing to trigger
analogy.

Anyway, I put rather more faith into the "word-final" explanation. It
gives us however, an apparent contradiction - on the one hand, the final
vowel of the proclitic is subject to "word-final" processes, on the
other hand, the mutation is triggered in seeming accordance with
"word-internal" rules.

Now what I am about to suggest is that mutation in Sindarin operates on
the phrasal level, while vowel dropping is a word property.

If this is true, then we should parse the above example as

[PhP [PhW ina ] pettha]

(PhP - phonological phrase, PhW - phonological word; I'm not parsing
_pettha_ as a PhW so as not to clutter up and to show the hierarchical
structure)

This allows to account for the fact that _ina_ shows both
"word-internal" and "word-in-its-own-right" properties, since if we
suggest that apocope happens on all right boundaries of *words*, we can
explain the "word-final" properties.

(An alternative account will consider _ina_ a clitic, and the _ina
pettha_ complex the phonological word. The body of the argument is not
affected by this terminological change, since it will still suppose a
special status of _ina_ in the phonology)

Now if we assume that some processes do consider the presence or absence
of a phonological word boundary as a relevant factor, this can have some
important implications for a theory of Sindarin mutations (and for
"practice", of course).

Writes Helge Fauskanger in his article on Sindarin
(http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/sindarin.htm#nasalized):

'The soft mutation corresponds to how certain consonants or consonant
groups develop between vowels.' Building on this, he cites some examples
of medial ND-combinations developing into NN > N, and concludes that the
lenition of original nasalized stops produces simple nasals, since the
processes are exactly parallel.

Faced with the evidence in VT44:21, Helge adds a further comment on
_i[-]mbas_:

'This system does seem to fit the general phonology best. I would
therefore write _i mas_, not _i mbas_, for "the bread" - irrespective of
Tolkien's curious indecision in this matter.'

Leaving aside the last statement of Helge's, which is not the topic of
this post, I would like to concentrate on his first claim, i. e. that ND
> N 'suits general phonology best'. First, this statement somehow
presupposes a 'better' way for the development of such combinations.
ND-combinations, however, do not always give NN, witness, for example,
Hebrew. Thus the statement is at best suspicious.

I suggest that the lack of ND > NN simplification in "word-initial"
(mutated) position is a special property of, for instance, left
boundaries of PhW's. That ND-groups are permitted in this position is a
fact that Helge himself acknowledges (he lets _e-mbâr nîn_ be an example
of 'mixed mutation'), and so the claim about 'general phonology' appears
to have a rather weak foundation.

Thus, PhW boundary is a factor which influences the non-execution of the
ND > NN simplification. This, by the way, is a good reason for
suggestion underlying ND-groups for *all* Sindarin single nasals
resulting from these groups - we will then need a rule for a
simplifcation if a PhW boundary is absent, or a blocking rule on PhW
boundary). This can lead to a suggestion that mutation and ND > N
simplification are different processes at all, going on different
levels.

Pursuing the idea further, we can suggest that left boundaries do appear
to be endowed with special properties with regard to mutations. While a
left boundary of a PhP (not PhW - the PhW left boundary is in fact the
only natural context for mutation!) certainly does not preclude mutation
(witness Direct Object lenition or things like _gûren bêd_[*]), it does
lay severe restrictions thereon, requiring a syntactic trigger rather
than a purely phonological one. This, once again, can be considered as
evidence of the fact that what is termed a single process ('mutation')
can in fact be a sum of a number of processes operating on different
levels.

[*] On a rather unrelated note, one wonders if the two words do not form
a single PhP by virtue of _gûren_ being fronted for emphasis, and thus
the logical stress relocating to that word. The assumption of fronting
does require the assumption of unmarked VSO order, which the present
author rather favours. It is, however, not directly relevant to the
question at hand)

To conclude:

- Sindarin does possess a distinction between phonological words and
phonological phrases (but see above on terminology), and possibly other
gradations not considered here.
- Different phonological processes take into account different levels of
phonological hierarchy
- Mutations can be decomposed into a number of processes operating on
different levels.

and finally

- There is nothing inherently wrong with a form like _i mbas_ for 'the
bread' (which did not require the above rant, since it was written by
Tolkien himself! :-)).

These are rather unpolished thoughts, though.

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@...

Nid byd, byd heb wybodaeth
                  --Welsh saying

I'm currently doing an essay on the elven languages of Tolkien, and
one thing I'm discussing is the "real world" sources of Quenya; how
Quenya relates to other languages in use throughout the world today,
in particular (but not limited to) Finnish as there is a reasonable
amount of information drawing comparisons between the two.

In my essay I plan to discuss the basics of phonology, morphology,
syntax, lexicon and semantics, and each in case compare Quenya to
a "real" language - if anybody with knowledge of other languages can
give me hints of where to start, or examples of specific things to
look at, that would be fantastic and I would be eternally indebted to
you :)

Any help would be greatly appreciated (and I hope this hasn't been
too off-topic for the group, perhaps it could create some discussion?)

Thanks,

Catherine Laurie

- - - - - - - - - -

[In exploring the "real world" sources of Quenya, the Big Three you
should focus on are Finnish, Latin, and Greek. In a letter dated
25 April 1954 to Naomi Mitchison, Tolkien wrote:

"[Quenya] is meant to be a kind of 'Elven-latin', and by transcribing
it into a spelling closely resembling that of Latin ... the similarity
to Latin has been increased ocularly. Actually it might be said to
be composed on a Latin basis with two other (main) ingredients
that happen to give me 'phonaesthetic' pleasure: Finnish and Greek.
It is however less consonantal than any of the three."
-- _Letters_, p. 176

And for a cautionary tale on how _not_ to go about comparing
Quenya with real-world languages, I suggest you read Tolkien's
letter to Mr. Rang (beginning on p. 379 of _Letters_)!

-- Patrick H. Wynne]

Well I don't know much about the language, but Tolkien
used the language from Karelia (at the border between
Finland and Russia) as a source of inspiration.

Good luck.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[NOTA BENE:

In keeping with the scholarly focus and standards of
Lambengolmor, I'm requesting that further simple replies
of this type -- "Tolkien used/was influenced by X" -- be
sent to Catherine Laurie off-list.

However, more detailed replies, actually _demonstrating_
specific influences of real-world languages on Quenya
by citation and comparison of Quenya and "real" words and
devices, will be welcomed on the list.

-- Patrick H. Wynne]