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findemaxam48
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Post Lesson Five Help
on: April 12, 2014 12:36
I am having a horrid time trying to understand the CoE Lesson Five. I have no idea why it isn't clicking with me- all of the Sindarin lessons did as well as the first four Quenya, but Im getting a headache trying to understand this lesson. I know Im probably making it more difficult than it is, but...help, please? Thank you!



~Maxie
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
dirk_math
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on: April 12, 2014 01:17
Hello Maxie, I hope this helps:

Quenya has two present tenses just like English has:
- the present tense or continuous tense as explained in Lesson 5. It corresponds to the -ing tense in English (he is drinking, I am fighting, they are sleeping, ...)
- the aorist (in Lesson 7): it corresponds to the simple present tense in English (he drinks, I fight, they sleep, ...)

Futhermore Quenya verbs can be divided into groups that behave differently when you want to conjugate them. There are two main groups (the third group doesn't have many verbs and is only discussed in Lesson 17).

In the dictionary a Quenya verb always ends in a hyphen. This indicates that it is the base form of the verb (not the infinitive as in English dictionaries):
- Group 1: verbs with a base form in -a, e.g. mapa- 'grasp'. The infinitive of these verbs can be found by dropping the hyphen: merin mapa 'I want to grasp'
- Group 2: verbs with a base form in a consonant, e.g. quet- 'speak'. The infinitive of these verbs isn't equal to the base form but gets an additional -ë: merin quetë 'I want to speak'

Now about the present tense, to form this tense we need to change the base form by lengthening the stem vowel. First problem where do I find the stem vowel:
- Group 1: the final vowel before the -a at the end: mapa- has the first a as stem vowel
- Group 2: the final vowel of the stem form: quet- has the e as stem vowel
Lengthening a vowel is in principle easy: a becomes á, e becomes é, ...

Afterwards we add the ending:
- Group 1: the final -a becomes -ëa: mápëan 'I am grasping', mápëal 'you are grasping', ...
- Group 2: add -a: quétan 'I am speaking', quétal 'you are speaking', ...

But there are a few complications of verbs where the stem vowel cannot be lengthened, but these all belong to group 1: In these three cases the stem vowel doesn't change:
- verbs with stem vowels that are already long: e.g. cíta- 'suppose': cítëan 'I am supposing'
- verbs with a diphthong as stem vowel: e.g. hauta- 'stop': hautëan 'I am stopping'
- verbs where the stem vowel is followed by more than one consonant: e.g. costa- 'quarrel': costëan 'I am quarreling', latya- 'open': latyëan 'I am opening'

Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
findemaxam48
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on: April 14, 2014 12:35
Thank you, dirk_math, I will let you know if I have any further questions.
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
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