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Lenielestel
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Post Possessives: Pronouns vs suffixes
on: April 30, 2014 05:56
Hello!

I was recently reading an article here: sindarinlessons.weebly.com

A couple of the lessons are about pronoun usage in Sindarin, and contained information I've not seen elsewhere (within my limited scope of research).

Lesson 23 seems to say that the possesive pronouns (nîn, lîn, etc) ought only to be used for THINGS one possesses, and never for people. For people, then, one must use the suffixes.

A couple of questions come to mind. First, I've never read this anywhere else. The lesson mentions PE17, but I don't have access to that. Is this something commonly known that I have just missed?

Secondly, according to the same lesson, the suffixes are diminutive. What if I want to talk to/about a person in a possessive way, without that implied endearment? For instance, would "hir nîn" or "hirenin" be a more appropriate form of address for someone I would address as "my lord" in English?
Galadivren
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on: May 01, 2014 03:46
Hello! As that's my site you're referring to, I think I'm qualified to answer you

In answer as to why it's not found elsewhere, the lessons on this site predate the publishing of that journal, but I believe it is found on realelvish.net

Can you give me an example of a sentence where you would refer to a person with a possessive pronoun? I never meant the lesson to infer that you should NEVER use anything but the suffixes with people, I will reword it if that's genuinely the meaning you took from it, but on the other hand, the only example I can think of is possibly if you owned slaves, in which case yes you could genuinely say 'my xyz'.
Ah, excuse me, you did give me an example. 'My lord'.
Would depend entirely on the context, and in that case I believe either would be appropriate - someone bowing to their King would not say hirenin after all, they would indeed use the more formal hîr nîn. That's ultimately the main difference (other than the issue of ownership) - is it a formal or an informal situation?
Lenielestel
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on: May 01, 2014 12:46
Ahh...formal and informal. That makes sense. Thank you for the clarification! I'm glad to know that is your site! I love it--the organization is easy to follow and study from, and the way you describe things generally "clicks" better in my understanding than some other places I have endeavoured to learn from.

I can think of times I might be talking about my relationship to a person (my mother, my captain, my king, my enemy, etc...), but not addressing the person. In that case, which would be more appropriate?
Galadivren
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on: May 01, 2014 01:31
Ah yes indeed - in those cases I would indeed tend to use the pronoun (particularly with enemy), but again, depends who you're speaking to!

Think I might steal that as an example actually for that lesson to give further clarification. If you're questioning it, others will too, so I want to make it clear.
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