G+ LoME Archive
Post Tcr8btWVbKg
Александр Запрягаев, Sindarin Chat, Paul Strack, Hjalmar Holm

Александр Запрягаев Apr 17, 2015 (22:02)

A further question. What is the underlying verb in mae govannen?
In the Etymologies, the answer is trivially bad- from BAT, but since then, no derivatives of the root do appear in texts marked 'Sindarin'. (There is, of course, batân in Adûnaic, but it also precedes PE17 and other relevant sources). In PE17, Tolkien toys with an idea of proposing some ba(n) verbal stem as opposed to Quenya-only men, but seemingly abandons that idea: further in the text many Sindarin derivatives of MEN do appear, and the connection to Q. vanwa and the hypothesis of extrapolated meaning "go away, depart" > "just go to a fixed destination" seems shaky when taking into consideration Tolkien's insistent remarks of AWA/WA 'departing' and ABA/BA 'refusal' being explicitly distinct roots. Rather something like gwa- is expected if accepting this semantic shift — and we get it indeed (p. 148, 3 sg. pt. anu, 1 sg. pt. anwen, 1 sg. pres. gwaen etc.); but such a form cannot give us govannen (past part. gwaun? Gwanwen? Comp. WJ: 378!) Hence, are we to accept that BAT returns and still remains as a main Sindarin movement/going root? When studing the final derivation govannen < gwa-bhandina, I cannot explain this intruding d anyhow but nasal infixion (bad-nina > band-ina > bannen). Any enlightening ideas?

Hjalmar Holm Apr 17, 2015 (22:19)

Perhaps not so enlightened, but the v could also come from m, and I find it easier to say govannen than *govennen, so perhaps the a comes from some sort of shift to make it easier to say.

Paul Strack Apr 18, 2015 (17:12)

Looking at PE17, pp. 16-17, it looks like Tolkien did reject the root BA(N) "go", but the restored the meaning as BAN "meet, come up against". I am also at a loss to explain the d in gwa-bhandina. Maybe the primitive verb was triconsonantal banad-?

I agree that the whole thing becomes easier to explain if we assume the root is BAT.

The only thing I can add to your analysis is that GL has a verb G. bad- "travel" (GL:21), so the verb bad- had a long history in Tolkien linguistic conceptions.

Александр Запрягаев Apr 18, 2015 (18:36)

+Paul Strack In VT42:32 (=PE17:143), it is claimed that Tolkien 'definitely' totally gets rid of any possible ba(n)- and proposes men as both S. and Q. root for movement. But his reluctance to replace govannen (*goven would be such a nice cognate to Q. omen(ta)-, and I don't believe Mae govennen is somehow worse sounding!) in this case [might have been just his feeling that any printed text is fixed] indicates to me the only possible solution: BAT should be restored. He spends too much time discusslng BAN 'beauty, lack of blemish' for that; also, S. baw 'don't' is not really consistent with any movement ideas.

Personally, I'd untangle the web somehow like that: in Q., MEN is movement to a particular destination and (E)DEL(E) is journeying; in S., when DEL gets junked except in Edhil, LEN is extrapolated instead; and for MEN, which disappears except i•ven 'way' and gets restored in verbs only to 3rd Age under heavy Quenya influence, moving with a destination in mind is originally bad- or gwa-, which is, indeed, derived from 'depart' > 'go away' > just 'go (esp. to another place, away from speaker or current position)'. Hence, trevad-, govad- and etc. are relevant.

Paul Strack Apr 18, 2015 (19:05)

+Александр Запрягаев
I don't think the case for rejection of BAN is quite that clear. Tolkien also "definitely" rejected AL|LA = "not" on the same page, only to restore it again later and then reject it again (VT42:33, VT44:4).

I am quibbling, though. I agree with you that the restoration of BAT is the simplest explanation of govannen. Given that BAT is glossed "tread" in the Etymologies, I think it is likelier that bad- means "walk" or perhaps "travel", as for its Quenya cognate vanta- "walk". I think "depart" would be gwae- from the distinct root WĀ/AWA (PE17:148), cognate of Q auta-.

Александр Запрягаев Apr 22, 2015 (15:56)

+Paul Strack 'walk' in Sindarin is known to be padra-, from a root meaning 'step' as process in CE. So, the distribution of walking-verb meanings is full of unexpected shifts indeed. I consider making a classification of all 'going' stems in Q and S; somehow, they are used in disarray.