LESSON SEVENTEEN

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The demonstratives: Sina, tan(y)a, enta, yana.Inflecting the 'Last Declinable Word'. U-stem nouns. Ordinalsin -ëa.

QUENYA DEMONSTRATIVES

1. Sindarin Pronunciation Guide Names for people, referencing places. If you would like a custom made name, go to Translation Requests and fill out the questionnaire.
2. Added interactive quizzes to Lesson 16 and Lesson 17. 12/08/19 Lessons 14 and 15 now have interactive quizzes. 15/04/19 PDF full course download has been updated to version 8.1 23/03/19 Updated Lesson 6 18/03/19 Added an interactive quiz to Lesson 13 18/01/19 Added a Gondorian Sindarin vocabulary PDF to Lesson 39.
3. Sindarin phrases, set out thematically. This is collection of useful (hopefully) Sindarin phrases, broken down by categories - so if you are looking for a simple 'Hello' or something more specific, hopefully you will find it here.
4. The word Sindarin itself is actually a Quenya word given by the Noldorin Exiles. It is pronounced ˈsindarin. Sindarin is the language referred to as 'the Elven-tongue' in The Lord of the Rings. In a letter, Tolkien referred to Sindarin as Grey Elvish. In another manuscript he used the similar name Grey-elven.

'Demonstratives'are such words as English this or that, with the correspondingplural forms these and those. Thus, they have a stronger meaningthan the mere article the (though in the languages of the world, manydefinitive articles descend from older demonstratives that were overused sothat their meaning faded). The demonstratives may be used together with nouns,producing phrases like 'this house' or 'that man'.

Lesson 13 - Prepositions and conjunctions A preposition is a word or phrase that shows the relationship of one word to another in a sentence, e.g. The flower on the table, The man with his wife.

In LotR-style Quenya we have only onedemonstrative attested in an actual text: Cirion's Oath commences with thewords vanda sina, translated 'this oath'. The Quenya wordorder is actually 'oath this', sina being the word for'this': The root SI- has to do with present position intime or space (cf. such words as sí 'now' or sinomë'in this place' = 'here', the latter from Elendil'sDeclaration in LotR).

A word for 'that' appears astanya in an early 'Qenya' text published in MC:215, which has tanyawende for 'that maiden'. Here, the word-order is'English-style' with the demonstrative first and the noun itqualifies following it – the opposite of the word order seen in Cirion's Oath.Perhaps the word order is free, so that vanda sina could just as well besina vanda – and conversely, tanya wende could also be wendetanya? Be that as it may, we cannot be quite certain that the word tanyais still valid in LotR-style Quenya. The Etymologies lists TA asthe Elvish 'demonstrative stem 'that',' and the actual Quenya wordfor 'that' is given as tana. Since this form seems like aperfect counterpart to sina 'this', we will here use tanarather than tanya as the word for 'that' (though it is alsopossible that the 'Qenya' form tanya survived into the laterstages of Tolkien's conception). So given that vanda sina is 'thisoath', we must assume that 'that oath' would be vanda tana.Maybe we should update the 'Qenya' phrase tanya wende'that maiden' to LotR-style Quenya vendë tana (or wendëtana with the older form or archaic spelling of the word for'maiden'). Then we also implement the word-order seen in Cirion'sOath, with the demonstrative following rather than preceding the noun itconnects with: In the entry TA in the Etym, Tolkien actually described tanaan anaphoric word for 'that', meaning that it refers back tosomething already mentioned.

However, sina 'this'and tan(y)a 'that' are not the only Quenya demonstrativesknown. Though not actually observed in any Quenya texts, other demonstrativesare mentioned in Tolkien's notes. Another word for 'that' is enta,mentioned in the entry EN in the Etymologies and there describedas an adjective meaning 'that yonder'. The root EN itself issaid to be an 'element or prefix = over there, yonder'. Still lettingthe demonstrative follow the noun it connects with, we may perhaps construct aphrase like coa enta, expressing 'that house' in the sense of'yonder house', 'that house over there'.

It may be that Tolkien meant Quenya todistinguish three degrees of nearness or remoteness, as do certainlanguages of our own world. English typically only distinguishes two degrees,'this' and 'that': To simplify matters rather drastically,we may say that 'this' refers to something near the speaker, whereas'that' refers to something away from the speaker. But in somelanguages, the position of the listener is also considered. There aretwo words for 'that', one referring to something away from thespeaker but near the person addressed ('that thing over byyou') and another word referring to something that is not close to eitherthe speaker or the listener ('that thing we see over there'). Couldit be that in Quenya, tana as a word for 'that' refers tosomething close to the person addressed, whereas enta refers to somethingthat is remote from both the speaker and the person (s)he addresses?There is presently little or no evidence to back up such a theory, but we canat least be certain that the word enta clearly connotes the idea of'over there', 'that yonder', of something separated fromthe speaker by physical distance. It may be noted that one Sindarin wordfor 'there', namely ennas (SD:129 cf. 128), is understood torepresent an older locative form that could correspond to a Quenya word entassë= 'in yonder [place]'. (Perhaps tana is simply a more generalword for 'that', merely focusing on the special identity of someoneor something: 'that one' as opposed to any other.)

Yet another word for 'that' is yana,mentioned in the entry YA in Etym: After the gloss 'that', Tolkienadded a parenthetical specification: '(the former)'. Perhaps aranyana would mean 'that king' with the implication that we aretalking about a former king, now dead or at least no longer ruling. There maybe interesting contrasts between yana and enta as words for'that': In the Etymologies, Tolkien noted that the root YAsignifies 'there, over there; of time, ago'. He added that EN,the root producing enta, 'of time points to the future'. So'that day' may translate as aurë enta if we are talking aboutsome future day, not yet come, whereas aurë yana is 'thatday' with reference to some day in the past. (A 'neutral'wording, with no special implications, may be aurë tana.)

As for pluraldemonstratives, like English 'these' and 'those', we haveno attested Quenya forms. Yet the words sina 'this' and tana,yana 'that' do look like adjectives by their form (-nabeing an adjectival or participial ending), and enta 'thatyonder' Tolkien explicitly identified as an adjective (Etym, entry EN).So in all likelihood, we can inflect all of these words as adjectives, and thenwe can derive their plural forms simply by changing the final -a to -ë:

vanda sina 'thisoath' / vandar sinë 'these oaths'

nís tana 'that woman'/ nissi tanë 'those women'

coa enta 'that house [overthere]' / coar entë 'those houses'

aurë yana 'that day [inthe past]' / auri yanë 'those days'

As in thecase of normal adjectives with the ending -a, the plural forms in -ëwould represent archaic forms in -ai (vandar sinai etc.) Indirectevidence confirms that demonstratives could receive the plural ending -iin older Elvish: In LotR, in the inscription on the Moria Gate, occurs theSindarin phrase i thiw hin, translated 'theserunes'. Tolkien would have meant this to represent something like inteñwâi sinâi at an older stage – and in Quenya, an old pluraldemonstrative sinâi 'these' would first become sinaiand then sinë.

It is notclear whether the demonstratives discussed above could occur by themselves,independently, and not only in conjunction with nouns. Can we use sinafor 'this' in a sentence like 'this is a good house'? (Andif we needed a plural form 'these', should we inflect sina asa noun when it occurs by itself, so that the plural would now be sinarrather than sinë?) In PM:401, we have the sentence sin quentëQuendingoldo. Tolkien provided no translation, but it must mean either'this Quendingoldo said' or 'thus spokeQuendingoldo'. The latter interpretation has it that sin is anadverb 'thus', but if sin means 'this', it would bewhat we may call a demonstrative pronoun – corresponding to sina,the latter however being an adjective only occurring in conjunction with anoun. By this interpretation, it would be sin, rather than sina,we should use in sentences like 'this is a good house' or 'Ihave seen this'. (And should the independent word for 'these' besomething like sini, then?) As for the other demonstratives, we have taas an 'independent' form of 'that', corresponding to theadjective tana (see Etym, entry TA). Of other such'independent' forms, little or nothing is known, and in the exercisesbelow, we will concentrate on the adjectival demonstratives sina, tana,enta, yana used in conjunction with nouns.

INFLECTING THE 'LAST DECLINABLE WORD'

Now that we havepresented all the Quenya cases, we may also point out that the various caseendings are not always attached to the noun they logically 'belong'to. Where that noun is part of a longer phrase, like when the noun is followedby an attributive adjective describing it, the case ending may be added to the lastword of the phrase.

Cirion's Oath provides the classicalexample. It includes a reference to Elendil Voronda, 'Elendil theFaithful', voronda being a Quenya adjective meaning'steadfast, faithful'. Wrote Tolkien: 'Adjectives used as a'title' or frequently used attribute of a name are placed after the name.'(UT:317; as we have pointed out earlier, Quenya here differs from English by notinserting a definite article between the name and the adjective – hence not Elendili Voronda, at least not necessarily).

In Cirion's Oath, the name-and-title phrase Elendil Voronda is toappear in the genitive case: The Oath includes the words Elendil Vorondovoronwë, 'Elendil the Faithful's faith' – or (as it istranslated in UT:305, with an English-style word order) 'the faith ofElendil the Faithful'. Notice that the genitive ending -o, which weunderlined, is added to the adjectivevoronda (regularlydisplacing a final -a) rather than to the noun Elendil. In a way,the adjective following the noun is treated as an extension of the noun proper,and so the case ending is added at the end of the whole phrase. Tolkiencommented on the construction Elendil Vorondo: 'As is usual inQuenya in the case of two declinable names in apposition only the last isdeclined' (UT:317). Voronda 'faithful' here stands inapposition to 'Elendil' as an additional 'name' or title,and only the latter 'name' is declined (inflected for case).

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This principle would work with all the various cases. The allative of Elendilwhen the name occurs alone is attested as Elendilenna 'toElendil' (PM:401), but 'to Elendil the Faithful' wouldapparently be Elendil Vorondanna, the last word of the phrase receivingthe case ending.

Where a proper name followed by some epithet (like Voronda inthis case) is concerned, the system of adding any case endings to the lastword of the phrase may be more or less universal. Yet common nouns, not justproper names, may also be qualified by adjectives following rather thanpreceding the noun. Cf. for instance a phrase like mallë téra 'roadstraight' = 'a straight road' (LR:47). If we were to add thelocative ending to express 'on a straight road', to what wordshould it be attached? Should we apply the 'last declinable word'rule again (mallë térassë) or attach the locative ending to the noun (mallessëtéra)?

It seems that both constructions would be permissible. The Markiryapoem provides a string of examples of noun-phrases where the noun proper isfollowed by an adjective (in most cases a participle). Three consecutiveexamples involve the noun isilmë 'moonlight' combined withvarious participles (ilcala 'gleaming', pícala'waning', lantala 'falling'), and all three nounphrases are inflected for the locative case by attaching the locative ending tothe last word of the phrase:

isilmë ilcalassë = 'ingleaming moonlight'

isilmë pícalassë = 'inwaning moonlight'

isilmë lantalassë = 'infalling moonlight'

(Tolkien's more poetictranslation in MC:215 goes 'in the moon gleaming, in the moon waning, inthe moon falling'.)

Another phrase, again involving the participle ilcala'gleaming' but here combined with the allative case, is particularlyinteresting:

axor ilcalannar = 'upongleaming bones'

Notice that the noun axo'bone' is here plural. The plural allative 'uponbones' occurring by itself would of course be axonnar. But here,where the plural allative ending -nnar is attached to the lastword of the phrase instead, the noun axo itself receives only thesimplest plural ending -r. Normally, axor would be taken as anominative plural, but actually the -r merely marks the word as a pluralform in the simplest possible way: The actual case marker follows later in thephrase. Words with nominative plurals in -i would of course receive thisplural marker instead, e.g. vendilindalaiva = 'ofsinging maidens' (home-made exampleinvolving the possessive case, but the principle would be the same for all thecases: dative vendi lindalain, allative vendi lindalannar, etc.)We must assume that dual nouns would also appear in their simplest(normally 'nominative') form at the beginning of the phrase: The nounwould merely assume the dual ending -u or -t, and the full dual caseending would follow later in the phrase. To construct a Tolkienesque example: Alducaltalanta ='upon [the] shiningcouple of trees'.

However, it is apparently not ahard-and-fast rule that you must attach a case ending to the last wordof the entire phrase rather than to the noun proper. Markirya containsexamples of phrases where an attributive adjective follows the noun itdescribes, and yet the case ending is added to the noun, not the adjective. Thefirst example involves a plural instrumental form (ending -inen),whereas the second example involves the locative case (the ending -ssëbeing added to a noun that is inflected for the somewhat obscure'partitive plural' marked by the ending -li):

rámainenelvië = 'on [/with] starlikewings'

ondolissëmornë = 'ondark rocks'

Of course, theadjectives elvëa 'starlike' and morna 'dark'are here plural (elvië, mornë) to agree with the plural nounsthey describe. It could be that in both instances, the case ending is not addedto the adjective because the adjectival plural inflection and the caseinflection would somehow collide. (In the phrase axor ilcalannar'upon gleaming bones' there is no collision even though'bones' is plural, since participles in -la apparently do notagree in number.) It is less than clear how an ending like -inen couldbe added to a form like elvië anyway: ?elviëinen seems like anunlikely and awkward form, prone to collapse into the quite obscure word **elvínen.Perhaps that is why Tolkien preferred to add the case ending to the noun rámainstead, even though this noun is not the last word of the phrase.

Yet the system of inflecting the'last declinable word' does seem to be a common phenomenon in thelanguage. A new example was published in January 2002: It turns out that in oneincomplete Quenya translation of the Gloria Patri, Tolkien used fairëaistan as the dative form of 'Holy Spirit'; here fairëmeans 'spirit' and the adjective aista 'holy'follows it, and the dative ending -n is appended to the latter word(VT43:37). It seems that sometimes, only the last item on a listreceives case endings that actually apply to all the nouns that are listed. NamnaFinwë Míriello is translated 'the Statute of Finwë and Míriel'(MR:258). Not only is the conjunction ar 'and' that would haveseparated the two names omitted, but the genitive ending -o'of' is added to the last name (Míriel, Míriell-)only. The 'full' construction would presumably have been NamnaFinwëo ar Míriello, but it was apparently permissible to strip the phrasedown to basics to provide the 'Statute' with a more concise title.

Though we have noattested examples, the demonstratives listed above would seem to be goodcandidates for receiving case endings, if the word order observed in the phrasevanda sina 'oath this' is normal. For instance, if we were toadd the instrumental ending to express 'by this oath', it wouldperhaps be best to say vanda sinanen. However, vandanen sinawould probably also be permissible – and in the plural (nominative presumablyvandar sinë 'these oaths'), consistently adding the caseending to the noun would be the safest course: 'By these oaths' wouldthen be vandainen sinë rather than ?vandar sinëinen or sinínenor whatever.

U-STEM NOUNS

Apparently in thelatter part of the 'Common Eldarin' stage of Tolkien's simulatedevolution of his Elvish languages, two parallel changes occurred, affectingwhat had earlier been short final -i and short final -u: they nowturned into -e and -o, respectively. However, since this change onlyoccurred where these vowels were final, they remained -i- and -u-whenever some ending or other element followed. We have already alluded to thisphenomenon earlier in this course; in particular, the student will remember itfrom the variation observed in the aorist of primary verbs: silë'shines', but pl. silir 'shine' (becauseoriginal -i did not change to -e when there was a followingending, like the plural marker -r in this example). Similar variationmay be observed in nouns and adjectives: We have already mentioned the noun lómë'night', which has the stem-form lómi- (SD:415) because itdescends from earlier dômi- (see the entry DOMO in Etym). We mustassume that (say) the locative form 'at night' would be lómissë.The adjective carnë 'red' descends from primitive karani(see Etym, entry KARÁN) and therefore has the stem-form carni-,for instance in a compound like Carnistir 'Red-face'(PM:353).

The behaviour of these 'i-stems'of course finds its parallel in the U-stems, words that end in -owhen this vowel is absolutely final, but preserve an original -u wheresome element follows this vowel. Such words seem to be predominantly (perhapsexclusively) nouns. One example of a U-stem noun is ango'snake': Its stem-form angu- is directly observed in thecompound angulócë (simply glossed 'dragon', butactually combining the word for 'snake' with the word normallytranslated 'dragon', lócë: see the entry LOK in Etym).In the Etymologies, Tolkien derived ango 'snake' fromolder ANGU (or ANGWA, which would become angw and then angu),so the final -o of this word does indeed represent an older -u.Whenever the noun ango is to receive endings for case or pronoun, itwould apparently assume the form angu-, e.g. dative angun'for a snake', ablative angullo 'from a snake' orwith a pronominal ending e.g. angulya 'your snake'. Thegenitive would presumably be anguo 'of a snake'. (As we havedemonstrated earlier, 'normal' nouns ending in -o do not havedistinct genitive singular forms; the genitive ending -o simply mergeswith the final vowel.)

Where U-stem nouns end in either -goor -co, they assume a peculiar form in the nominative plural. Normally,nouns ending in -o would of course have nominative plural forms in -or.However, where -go and -co represent older -gu and -ku,it seems that adding the primitive plural ending -î made the preceding ubecome w, so that the plurals came to end in -gwî or -kwî.Probably w merged with the g or k preceding it: Thecombinations gw, kw are evidently best taken as unitary sounds, labializedversions of g and k (that is, g or k pronouncedwith poised lips – look up Lesson One again). In Quenya, these labializedsounds persisted, though by convention, kw is spelt qu. Bottomline is, when we are told that ango 'snake' has the stem angu-,we can also deduce that the plural form is neither **angor nor **angur,but angwi! The Etymologies confirms this; the plural form angwiis explicitly mentioned in the entry ANGWA/ANGU.

An example of a -qui plural is provided by the word urco'bogey', which has the plural urqui (= urcwi).Regarding this word, Tolkien noted that 'as the plural form shows', urcomust be derived from either urku or uruku in the primitivelanguage (WJ:390). Thus, urco is definitely a U-stem noun, its final -orepresenting older -u, and we would still see urcu- in compoundsand before most inflectional endings.

NOTE:The word urco 'bogey' is akin to Sindarin orch,'Orc'. In WJ:390, Tolkien notes that in the lore of the Blessed Realm,the word urco 'naturally seldom occurs, except in tales of theancient days and the March [of the Eldar from Cuiviénen], and then [it] isvague in meaning, referring to anything that caused fear to the Elves, anydubious shape or shadow, or prowling creature... It might indeed be translated'bogey'.' Later, when the Noldor returned to Middle-earth, the word urcopl. urqui was primarily used with reference to Orcs, since the kinship('though not precise equivalence') of this Quenya term to Sindarin orchwas recognized. In Exilic Quenya, a Sindarin-influenced form also appeared: Orco,the plural of which could be either orcor or orqui. The pluralform orcor occurs elsewhere as well (MR:74), but if one prefers orqui,one should probably let orco 'Orc' function as a U-stem in allrespects. For instance, if one were to coin a compound'Orc-language', it should be orculambë rather than orcolambë.In the Etymologies, far predating the source reproduced in WJ:390,Tolkien also gives the relevant word (glossed 'goblin!') as orcopl. orqui: stem ÓROK. In Etym, there is no hint that this wordwas borrowed into Quenya from another language; orco is referred to aprimitive form órku. Tolkien's precise ideas about the history of theQuenya word for 'Orc' were apparently subject to change, but thebasic idea that nouns in -co derived from primitive forms in -kushould have plurals in -qui rather than -cor is seen to persist.– In accordance with our policy of avoiding specific references to Tolkien'smythos in the exercises, we will not refer to 'Orcs' here, but we canuse the word urco in its sense of 'bogey' (it will occur inthe exercises appended to Lesson Eighteen).

We will tryto survey the words involved (excluding the earliest 'Qenya'material). Ango 'snake', pl. angwi, seems to be oursole entirely certain example of a -gwi plural. In the Etymologies,there was also lango 'throat', pl. langwi (see theentry LANK). The form langwi is for some reason marked with anasterisk, which would normally indicate that this form is unattested, butpossibly it has another meaning here. Anyway, Tolkien decided to change theword for 'throat', turning it into lanco instead. It isentirely possible that this is also a U-stem, so that its plural should be lanquirather than lancor, though we have no explicit information to thiseffect.

One certain U-stem is the word for'arm', ranco (primitive form explicitly given as ranku).Just as we would expect, the plural form is ranqui; see the entry RAKin Etym. A word meaning 'arm' would presumably often appear in its dualform to signify a natural pair of arms. We may wonder whether the dual form of rancowould be rancu (with the dual ending -u, quite unrelated to theoriginal final -u that later became -o) or rancut (i.e.,the U-stem noun ranco, rancu- with the dual ending -t). Aswe have argued from the attested example peu 'pair of lips',nouns denoting body-parts occurring in pairs may consistently have'fossilized' dual forms in -u, since it was this ending that originallydenoted a natural or logical pair. Once a pronominal ending is added, we may atleast safely suffix -t to indicate a dual form. Indeed, without thisending there would be no distinction between ranculya 'yourarm' and ranculyat 'your (pair of) arms', no matter whatthe dual of ranco may be when the word occurs by itself: Before endings,ranco must become rancu- anyway.

Another U-stem is rusco'fox'; it our source, Tolkien mentioned both the stem-form ruscu-and the plural rusqui (VT41:10).

Not all U-stems end in -co or -go,of course. One example is the word curo 'a skillful device'(VT41:10, last word of gloss uncertain due to Tolkien's difficult handwriting).Tolkien cited the stem-form curu-, and it apparently also occurs inSaruman's Quenya name: Curumo (UT:401). This name seems to combine theelement curu- with the masculine ending -mo 'that oftenappeared in names or titles' (WJ:400). We may wonder what the nominativeplural of curo, curu- would be. Could it be curwi,paralleling angwi as the plural of ango, angu-'snake'?

Anyhow, the special nominative pluralsending in -wi (spelt -ui when part of -qui) would also bereflected in the genitive plural and the dative plural: If the nominativeplural of rusco 'fox' is rusqui (= ruscwi) thecorresponding dative and genitive forms can hardly be anything else than rusquin(= ruscwin) and rusquion(= ruscwion), respectively. Onewould think that we would also see rusquiva(= ruscwiva) as theplural possessive, and rusquinen(= ruscwinen) as the pluralinstrumental. There is one form that can be cited against the two latterassumptions: the related adjective ruscuitë 'foxy', mentionedin the same source that gives us rusco, ruscu- pl. rusqui(VT41:10). In the word ruscuitë, which includes the adjectival ending -itë,there is no development cui > cwi = qui; wedon't see **rusquitë. The ending -itë may by its shape resemblethe case endings -iva and -inen for plural possessive and pluralinstrumental. So if we have ruscuitë, perhaps we would – asphonologically parallel forms – also see ruscuiva and ruscuinenrather than rusquiva, rusquinen? We cannot know. I will notconstruct any exercises involving the plural form of the possessive andinstrumental cases.

In the other cases, where the pluralcase endings do not include the vowel -i, all one has to rememberis to change the final -o of a U-stem noun to -u before addingwhatever ending is relevant. Using ango, angu- 'snake'as our example, we would for instance have the plural allative angunnar'to snakes' (not **angwinna or **angwinnar or whatever;cf. the singular angunna 'to a snake'). Likewise we would havethe pl. ablative angullon or angullor 'from snakes'(sg. angullo 'from a snake'), pl. locative angussen'in snakes' (sg. angussë 'in a snake'). As thecorresponding dual forms, we would presumably see angunta, angulto,angutsë = 'to/from/in a pair of snakes'. Pronominal endingswould also be added to the stem-form angu-, and any further endings fornumber or case would then be added after the pronominal ending as described inearlier lessons: angulya 'your snake', plural angulyar(hardly **angwilyar!) 'your snakes', dual angulyat'your pair of snakes', dative angulyan 'for yoursnake', plural dative angulyain (hardly **angwilyain!)'for your snakes', etc. etc.

NOTE: Nonetheless, the nominative plurals in -wi (-gwi, -qui)must be seen as the most striking feature of U-stem nouns. In at least oneinstance, this plural formation apparently spread to another noun by analogy:According to the Etymologies, entry TÉLEK, the noun telco'leg' has the plural telqui, but this plural is said to be'analogical'. Presumably, Tolkien's idea is that telco is nota 'true' u-stem noun (it does not come from PrimitiveElvish teleku or telku, but rather descends from something like telekô,telkô). Therefore, its plural 'should' have been telcor,and the actual form telqui is merely due to influence from such pairs asranco pl. ranqui or urco pl. urqui. However, telcoseems to be exceptional in this respect. I don't think we should replace (say) Naucoras the plural form of Nauco 'Dwarf' with **Nauqui.

ORDINALS

We havealready introduced three ordinal numbers, minya'first', (t)atya 'second' and nelya'third'. All three include the frequent adjectival ending -ya(occurring in the word Quenya 'Elvish' itself). However, itturns out that most ordinals end in -ëa, displacing the final vowel ofthe corresponding cardinal number. Thus we have the followingcorrespondences between cardinals and ordinals:

canta 'four' vs. cantëa'fourth'

lempë 'five' vs. lempëa'fifth'

enquë 'six' vs. enquëa'sixth'

otso 'seven' vs. otsëa'seventh'

tolto 'eight' vs. toltëa'eighth' (also toldëa, presupposing toldo as a variant word for'8')

nertë 'nine' vs. nertëa'ninth'

This tableis based on an account of Eldarin numerals written by Tolkien in the latesixties, published in VT42:24-27 (also see the editorial notes on pp. 30-31).Tolkien indicated that the word for 'fifth' had earlier been either lemenyaor lepenya (with the same ending as in minya etc.), but this'irregular' form was later replaced by lempëa by analogy withthe simple cardinal lempë 'five'. Tolkien's notes presentvarying views as to when this substitution occurred (whether already inpre-Exilic times, or later), but it is at least clear that in Frodo's day, lempëawould be the word to use when you need to express 'fifth'.

Even the words for 'second'and 'third' could have the ending -ëa instead of -ya.The ordinal (t)atya 'second' was 'earlyreplaced' by attëa, which would be a 'regular' formationcompared to the cardinal atta 'two'. Similarly, nelyaas the word for 'three' could also be replaced by neldëa, moreclearly reflecting the cardinal neldë 'three' (but in thiscase, nothing is said about neldëa wholly replacingnelya).

VT42:25 also lists a word for'tenth', quainëa, but this presupposes another word for'ten' than the form cainen mentioned in the Etymologies.A root KAY- having to do with the number 'ten' seems to havehaunted Tolkien's imagination for at least thirty years, so I hesitate to throwit over board just because a divergent form turns up in one late manuscript –but this is not the place to discuss what forms we should accept as'valid' or 'canonical'. The ordinal corresponding to thecardinal cainen could be either cainenya or cainëa (buthardly ?cainenëa).

Over the next three lessons, we willwork our way through the attested ordinals, starting with the word for'fourth' (cantëa).

Summary of Lesson Seventeen: Quenya demonstratives include sina'this', tana 'that' (one early source also has tanya),enta 'that (yonder)' (apparently with emphasis on spatialposition, though it may also refer to something that lies in the future)and yana 'that (former)' (of time used of something that liesin the past, the opposite of enta). It may be assumed that thecorresponding plural forms (the words for 'these' and'those') end in -ë rather than -a, since thesedemonstratives probably behave like adjectives. Demonstratives are, or may be,placed after the noun they connect with; Cirion's Oath has vanda sinafor 'this oath' (we cannot know whether the English-style word order sinavanda would be equally valid, and the word order observed in Cirion's Oathis consistently employed in the exercises below). – Where there are severaldeclinable words in a phrase, as when a noun is followed by an attributiveadjective (or participle) describing it, a case ending may be added to the lastword of the phrase. The noun itself, if not singular, would receive only thesimplest endings for number (the endings normally associated with thenominative case, like -i or -r in the plural): The case endingthat follows later in the phrase would still determine what case the entirephrase is. – U-stem nouns originally ended in the vowel -u, which inQuenya has become -o when the word occurs without endings, but where notfinal, the vowel remains -u-. Thus a word like ango'snake' appears as angu- in a compound (e.g. angulócë'snake-dragon'), and no doubt also before endings for pronoun or case(e.g. angulya 'your snake', or allative angunna'to a snake'). The nominative plural of U-stem nouns is formedwith the ending -i (rather than -r), and at least where the nounhappens to end in -go or -co, the final vowel representing anolder u turns into w before the plural ending. Thus thenominative plural of ango, angu- is angwi, and the pluralof ranco, rancu- is ranqui (this spelling representing rancwi).These special plurals may also be reflected in the other cases that have pluralcase endings involving the vowel i, certainly the genitive plural (angwion,ranquion) and dative plural (angwin, ranquin). – The ordinalnumbers from 'fourth' to 'ninth' are formed by replacingthe final vowel of the corresponding cardinal number with -ëa, e.g. cantëa'fourth' from canta 'four'. Even the ordinals (t)atya'second' and nelya 'third' may be replaced by attëa,neldëa (cf. the cardinals atta 'two', neldë'three').

VOCABULARY

In additionto learning these new words, the student should notice that the noun ranco'arm' (introduced in Lesson Three) is a U-stem: rancu-.

cantëa 'fourth'

tana demonstrative 'that'

enta demonstrative 'that[yonder]', '[the one] over there' (of time referring to somefuture entity)

yana demonstrative 'that' ='the former' (of time referring to some past entity)

sina demonstrative 'this'

ango (angu-) 'snake'

sangwa 'poison'

lómë (lómi-) 'night'

polda adjective 'strong, burly'(ofphysical strength only; the verb pol- 'can' is probablyrelated)

halla adjective 'tall'

forya adjective 'right'

Formen '(the) North' (cf. Formenos,the 'Northern Fortress' constructed by Fëanor in the Blessed Realm;the final element -os is reduced from osto 'fortress;city'.)

This concludes our listing of the four directions Númen, Hyarmen,Rómen, Formen = West, South, East, North (this being their proper'Middle-earth' order). Just as Hyarmen 'South' isrelated to the adjective hyarya 'left', so Formen'North' is related to the adjective forya 'right',since the reference-point is that of a person facing West (lookingtowards Valinor).

EXERCISES

1.Translate into English:

A. Engwë sina ná i macil hirnaCalandil Hallanen.

B.Ilyë lamni avánier nórë sinallo.

C.Ango harnanë forya rancurya, areques: 'Nai ilyë angwi firuvar!'

D.Lómë yanassë hirnentë Nauco tanaambo entassë.

E. I hallë ciryar oantier Formenna;ciryar tanë úvar tulë i nórennar Hyarmeno.

F.I cantëa auressë tári yana firnëanguo sangwanen.

G.I poldë ranqui i nerion Formellopolir mapa i ehti ohtari mahtalallon.

H.Hrívë yanassë marnentë i cantëacoassë mallë tano.

2.Translate into Quenya:

Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Online

I. Watch that Dwarf, and don't watchthis Elf!

J. A land without snakes is a goodland, for many Men [Atani] have died by (instrumental)snake-poison.

K. During (locative) the fourthnight I saw a terrifying warrior on that road, and I raised my arms (dual).

L. Wish that [= nai] the strongson of Calandil the Tall will come to this land, for he will protect thesecities in which we (inclusive) dwell!

M. That tower (or, yonder tower)is the fourth tower made by Elves in this land.

Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Lesson

N. Those books are gone [vanwëthe pl. of vanwa]; they have disappeared from your room.

O. On that day you shall see your son.

Sindarin Place Namessindarin Lessons Pdf