KfQ1S1FYSUC — G+ LoME Archive

Александр Запрягаев Sep 25, 2015 (16:21)

I started a new venture, this time into an often-neglected Eldarin tongue. Planning to make an article tentatively called 'Verbal tense stems in Telerin', attempting to determine the number of tenses attested in the sources, methods of their formation and characteristic differences between it and Quenya (especially concerning the tenses corresponding to Q. aorist and imperfect). I'm still not sure whether it is possible to find a single and noncontradictory hypothesis encompassing all the sources from the late 40s and up to 1969; nevertheless, I will attempt to find out as much as possible.

Tamas Ferencz Sep 25, 2015 (16:30)

It's good to see research into the "lesser tongues"!

Александр Запрягаев Sep 25, 2015 (16:41)

+Tamas Ferencz I decided to start with the verb, for the information is more organized, and with better chances of success. For example, I fail to understand how did Telerin form a singular genitive: the 'possessive' meaning is either assigned to ba as in Q. or to ancient n, but how does it form a partitive one, if o is claimed not to be used in singulars systematically anywhere but Quenya?

Александр Запрягаев Sep 25, 2015 (18:58)

+Tamas Ferencz +Paul Strack Do you happen to know how did David Salo come to a conclusion that in QE, 'Telerin was inflected like Quenya, but with differences in detail. Thus the genitive marker in both was -o, but while the Quenya genitive plural was -on, in Telerin it remained -o. Thus Q. Avarion “of the Avari,” but T. !Abario of the same meaning.'?

Paul Strack Sep 25, 2015 (19:03)

Unfortunately I have not look at Telerin in detail yet. I've been adding Telerin words to Eldamo as I encountered them, but have done no analysis.

Paul Strack Sep 25, 2015 (19:06)

Also, Salo isn't the only one to look at Telerin. You might want to look at Roman Rausch's analysis here:

http://www.sindanoorie.net/art/Telerin000.html

Paul Strack Sep 25, 2015 (19:10)

Rausch says the same thing as Salo for the Telerin genitive plural. It sounds like their rationale is that the second plural marker -n is a quirk of Quenya, and therefore not present in Telerin.

Александр Запрягаев Sep 25, 2015 (19:16)

+Paul Strack +Tamas Ferencz Found it. It is stated on QE:369, HO. The information there seems to be made as contradictory to CE:NS notes of the 'cases' as much as Tolkien deems possible.

Or maybe almost not: the non-possessive usage is still rendered by o, the final n is still a quirk of Quenya (PE21 states it to be a reflex of older m); however, what are we to do with the explicit statement '. This (n,na) genitive (only adjectival and possessive, never partitive) survives specially in Telerin (Valinorean and Beleriandic)'? Shall we connect to El sīla lūme*na* uomentienguo?

Александр Запрягаев Sep 27, 2015 (10:56)

+Paul Strack +Tamas Ferencz According to the late sources, I'd attempt to reconstruct the Telerin person-number system as follows:
1 sg. carine, carin (normally second, to avoid confusion with the past marker);
2 sg. fam. carice, caric;
2 sg. form. caride, carid (no le in Telerin);
3 sg. carire (or maybe carise), caris, possibly also carira/carisa for the inanimates;

1 pl. excl. carime, carim;
1 pl. incl. ?? caringue (I guess, after the redesign of the Q. omentielvo, rather caripe, carip is expected — cf. S.);
2 pl. caride, carid (it is not very probable that a distinction between numbers is followed here);
3 pl. carite, poss. but very improbable inanimate carita (would coincide with the 'long' infinitive!).

Paul Strack Sep 27, 2015 (16:10)

It is possible that 1 pl. incl. ngue was generalized from the ancient 1 dual incl. That would only work if Telerin lost the dual forms, like Sindarin.