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_Telchar
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on: June 15, 2017 05:31
I just read about possessive case being used to express the object of a verbal noun. This seems to correspond to English phrases like "Sam's killing." (Sam, a possessive case noun, is the object of killing, a verbal noun.) There are also phrases in English where a possessive noun expresses the subject of a verbal noun, as in "the sister's singing." (It seems to be most common with intransitive nouns.) Could that also work in Quenya? ("I selerwa liralë" )
Also, do we know of any way to form verbal nouns from primary verbs? (The lesson only mentioned a-stems.)

[Edited on 06/15/2017 by _Telchar]
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dirk_math
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on: June 15, 2017 06:17
Ardalambion uses the general notion of a verbal noun, i.e. a noun that describes an action. E.g. discovery, love, ... CoE follows this site in this.

This is NOT what English language grammars use for verbal nouns!
Most languages use the general notion and as this site is meant for people from the whole world (and the author from Ardalambion is from Norway), this choice was made when designing the course on CoE.

So "killing" is NOT a verbal noun in the meaning of this course (it's a gerund), but "murder" is.
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_Telchar
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on: June 15, 2017 07:23
Oh, interesting. Yeah, That clears things up. Although the example in lesson twelve is "singing," which is also a gerund(?). So does that mean that "I selerwa (sellwa) liralë" would not work?
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dirk_math
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on: June 15, 2017 07:36
It works as in a Quenya mindset -lë is not a verbal ending but an ending that changes verbs into nouns (a bit as the -y in discovery).
In English the -y cannot be applied to all verbs (e.g. there is no *singy), but in Quenya -lë is applicable to all A-verbs, liralë in fact means "the act of singing", but this is for practical reasons shortend to "the singing".
So that's why it looks like a gerund but it is only so in translation not in the original Quenya (as a gerund ends in -ie not in -lë).

If you would like to express "singing is good" you would indeed use the gerund lirië: lirië ná mára. But here we don't mean "the act of singing" but a more general "every singing".
I don't know if you know any other language besides English, but e.g. in German the gerund lirië is "das Singen" and the noun i liralë "das Gesang" (a general verbal noun in the meaning of my previous answer). So it is only in English that the -ing form of the verb has a double use.

I hope these subtle differences make it a bit clearer as most native English speakers don't realise that they are in fact using one form to express two notions.
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_Telchar
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on: June 15, 2017 12:06
Yeah thanks, that helps. I don't know any languages other than English, except for three years of studying Latin. I'm still not super clear on the difference between gerunds and verbal nouns; is a gerund always more general?
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dirk_math
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on: June 15, 2017 03:30
In Latin the gerund is the declension of the infinitive. Quenya gerunds in fact correspond to this.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Latin_gerunds
In Quenya we have hlarie as the nominative not the infinitive itself as in Latin (audire).
But English uses the -ing form and not the infinitive.

So some examples:
hearing birds is good - hlarie aiwi ná mára
I love my hearing - melin hlarienya
the art of hearing - carmë hlariéo

The present participle in English also ends in -ing but is an adjective not a noun:
the hearing wolf - i hlárala nauro
hearing me he stood up - hlárala inyë ortanes


With a verbal noun Latin uses the subjective and objective genitives:
causa itineris - the cause of the journey (objective genitive)
adventus Caesaris - the arrival of Caesar (subjective genitive)
The nouns cause and adventus aren't verbs or a form of a verb (like a participle or a gerund), but are nouns that are connected to verbs:
causa - causare - to cause
adventus - advenire - to arrive
In Quenya this would be:
i tyaralë lendava - the cause of the journey - objective possessive
i tenyalë arano - the arrival of the king - subjective genitive


[Edited on 06/16/2017 by dirk_math]
Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
_Telchar
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on: June 16, 2017 04:16
OK. I hadn't actually learned about gerunds yet, but I sure had heard a lot about Caesar.
Thanks for the help!
Lacho calad! Drego morn!
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