Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!das-news.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!uhog.mit.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!festival!edcogsci!iad
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Quenya conjugation (Re: Klingon Bible)
Message-ID: <CxDCst.Jqz@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <36h6eb$12eb@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <Cx581A.1GD@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <carl-0510940919320001@mac7.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 19:29:16 GMT
Lines: 49

In article <carl-0510940919320001@mac7.gsfc.nasa.gov> carl@class.gsfc.nasa.gov (Carl F. Hostetter) writes:
>In article <Cx581A.1GD@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A
>Derzhanski) wrote:
>
>> In `The Lost Road' it says that _mela'ne_ is [Quenya for] `I love';
>> in the `Etymologies' it says that _tulin_ is `I come'.
>> [<goes on to wonder why the endings are different>]

>Actually, the significant difference between these verbs is
>in the stem vowel, not the personal ending. It is not difficult
>to see _-n_ 'I' and _-ne_ 'I' as simply short vs. long variants
>of the same ending.

The very existence of a personal ending with a short and a long variant
is no simple matter; I can't think of any good example of this kind of
thing occurring in the Mannish languages of the present age.

>After all, even within _The Lord of the Rings_
>we find the first person endings _-n_ 'I' (cf. _utu'lien_ 'I am
>come' and _maruvan_ 'I will abide', III:245) coexisting with
>_-nye_ 'I' (cf. _utu'vienyes_ 'I have found it', III:250).

True.  But that may be correlated with there being an object marker
(clitic?) following _-nye-_ in the second example.  Nor does it help
that now we have *two* long forms plus a short one.  That's a greater
degree of variation than is normally found in languages.

>The real difference between these verbs is that _tulin_ 'I come'
>derives from a stem *_tuli-_ 'come', while _mela'ne_ derives from a
>stem _mela_ 'love'.

Where does this follow from?  The Proto-Eldarin stems are listed as
_TUL_ and _MEL_ in the `Etymologies' and as _TULU_ and _MELE_ in _The
Book of Lost Tales_.

I find it remarkable that all first person singular forms in the
`Etymologies' end in _-in_; I'm not sure, however, whether this was
intended to say `these are examples, all other verbs conjugate in the
same way' or `these are exceptions, all other verbs end in _-an_'
(or something of that sort).

By the way, N Martsch (_Basic Quenya_) teaches people to say _tulan_
for `I come' (and generally to use _-a-_ as stem vowels in all cases).

-- 
`That's yer oan problem, Judas', they telt him.  `It's nae concern tae us.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk/chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)  (The G-- G--)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
