Stem variation
Some nouns have a special form, the so-called stem, which is the form endings are usually added to. In wordlists, this form is often given in brackets. Example: toron (torn-) “brother.” This means that when forming the plural of the noun “toron”, the ending should be added to the form “torn-“, producing “torni” (brothers).

The partitive plural
In addition to the normal plural, Quenya also has the partitive plural, which replaces words like “a few” or “some”. Example: “culuma” (an orange – singular), “culumali” (some oranges, a few oranges – partitive plural).

The partitive plural is formed by adding the suffix “-li” to the noun, as in “culuma” – “culumali”.
If the noun ends in -r, -n, or -s, this consonant changes into –l: “atar” (father) – “atalli” (some fathers).
If the noun ends in -t, an “e” is added before the “-li”: “sarat” (sign) – “sarateli” (some signs).

Special note on the partitive plural and stem forms
Nouns with a separate stem-form use this stem-form in the partitive plural. When this stem-form ends in a consonant we again add “-e-“. However, when the normal form of the noun ends in -r, -n or -s, we use this instead of the stem-form, but change the final letter into -l-, just as before.

Example: “toron” (brother) – “torolli” (some brothers)

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Vocabulary list 3

car (card-) “building, house”
falas (falass-) “shore, beach”
lis (liss-) “honey”
meren (merend-) “feast, festival”
pilin (pilind-) “arrow”
seler (sell-) “sister”
toron (torn-) “brother”
atar “father”
amil (amill-) “mother”
huan (hún-) “hound”
laman (lamn-) “animal”
hína “child”. This word has the irregular plural form “híni”.

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Tengwar lesson 3

The four tengwar of this lesson all combine a nasal sound (‘m’ or ‘n’) with the tengwar we already know. Each of these tengwar has two bowls and the stem points upwards instead of downwards.

An important principle of writing the correct tengwar is: whenever the use of a tengwa that represents more than one sound is possible, always use that combined tengwa. So if a word contains an ‘n’ followed by a ‘c’ we always use anca and never write the ‘n’ and the ‘c’ as separate tengwar.