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elowen_x_nenharma
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Post Long Infinitives
on: July 18, 2004 11:30
Suilad! I was wondering, could someone please explain long infinitives to me, as I have no idea how to use them. I see them on Quenya wordlists, like cen-, but Im not quite sure how to use them. If someone could help me, that would be really great. Thanks!
dirk_math
Quenya Workbook Mentor
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Post RE: Long Infinitives
on: July 18, 2004 11:49
When you say something like 'I thank you' in Quenya, we put two pronouns on the verb: hantanyel.

With infinitives this construction is not so easy: 'I can thank' is polin hanta. Now to put the -l ending somewhere, the infinitive hanta is changed into the long infinitive hantata. So we find polin hantatal 'I can thank you'.

As a final remark, modern Quenya users mostly avoid this construction because the readability is not very high, so they change this into: polin le hanta (although I'm not entirely sure that the use of le is correct Quenya).
Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
Malinornë
FAQ Admin, Quenya Moderator & Eldameldë
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Post RE: Long Infinitives
on: July 19, 2004 10:40
In addition to what Dirk said, the long form of basic verbs like "cen-" add "-ita-", as in polin cenital - 'I can see you'
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