"If". Got a few words in Quenya, "cé/ce", "qui"... the mysterious "aiquen", and the older "mai". The Neo-Sindarin words are lacking, I think. "Ae" is on shaky ground, based off of "aiquen", so I think something based off of "cé/ce" or "qui" would be better, but what shape would it be?
The roots here are EK(E) and KWI. "ce" and "pi" are what I think it'd be. Any thoughts?
Tamas Ferencz Aug 08, 2014 (13:04)
ܤܡܝ ܦܠܕܢܝܘܤ Aug 08, 2014 (15:25)
Word-history of the Welsh counterparts (ultimately always helpful):
https://archive.org/stream/welshgrammarhist00joneuoft#page/444/mode/2up
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[1] http://www.elendilion.pl/2013/12/22/g-i-p-report-complete-sindarin-dialogs-from-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug/
Tamas Ferencz Aug 08, 2014 (15:34)
is *ge possible phonologically?
Fiona Jallings Aug 08, 2014 (16:07)
Roman Rausch Aug 09, 2014 (01:42)
Btw, these are of course two things: In alasaila ké nauva, ké expresses modality, in ké mo quete ulka (different source!) it's a conditional conjunction. But the two uses are consistent with each other, since markers of epistemic modality (= judging the likelihood of a situation) apparently may turn into conditionals, among other things (according to a paper I've been reading).
In fact, it happens in English as well, cf. 'This should be bad' (ep. modality) and 'Should one speak evil, [...]' (conditional).
Matt Dinse Aug 09, 2014 (03:42)
Fiona Jallings Aug 09, 2014 (10:34)
Roman Rausch Aug 09, 2014 (12:18)
It falls under the term 'deontic modality' (compelling external circumstances, social/ethical norms). But again, compare English may which is deontic in 'You may leave now' and epistemic in 'This may be true'.
In any case, the passive theory of en seems way more speculative to me: There is no translation. Why does one particle go before the verb and one after? Where does en come from and is it related to aen? Why is a particle even needed for an indicative form?
But regardless, in VT50:14 it is ruled out that aen and en are pronouns, based on existing paradigms. This still leaves aen as a modality particle which could conceivably develop into (or be related to) a conditional.
+Matt Dinse
It's from A survey of Eldarin pronouns by Bill Welden and it just says 'This [aen] replaced an earlier word ge'.
But there is also a variant of Aragorn's gotcha-sentence from Marquette: En ni túviet (PE8:9). The rest is otherwise attested, as far as I can see.
Which early parmar are you missing? I can send you the pdfs. (I'm missing 6 & 7 myself.)
ܤܡܝ ܦܠܕܢܝܘܤ Aug 09, 2014 (14:29)
Finnish jos "if" is also derived from a relative pronoun stem, with old lative -s (more or less = CE *-da, WJ:366).
Matt Dinse Aug 09, 2014 (23:38)
I'm actually missing 1-10; I didn't know the earlier ones were available (out there on the Internet). Luckily I have the later ones, more or less (phys. copies of what I could get, and PDFs of the out-of-print until they're reprinted again).