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Nerdmeister
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Post Possible case endings?
on: April 29, 2015 05:10
I was playing around with some different sentences to try out quenya grammar and, among many, I came upon the following made-up sentence:
"The gifts of the Valar must not be squandered"

Which I ended up translating thusly:
"Lá mauya annar i Valaronin ná vanwa"

I use the impersonal verb "mauya" for "must", which then governs the dative case, which in this case is "the gifts of the Valar". The word "Valar" however already receives the pl. genitive ending (-on) and I have not heard that a noun should be able to receive dual endings outside of possesive (-nya, -lya etc) and the above word "Valaronin" strikes me as quite wrong. I have supposed that I might get around this by rearranging the word-order to something like:
"Lá mauya i Valaron annain ná vanwa"

Or simply putting the dating on "gifts" without chaning the word-order:
"Lá mauya annain Valaron ná vanwa"

At the moment I suspect that I have been overanalyzing this too much and would like another set of eyes on the translation.

Thank you in advance for any perspective you might offer. It will be appreciated regardless of wether I agree with it


[Edited on 04/29/2015 by Nerdmeister]
dirk_math
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on: April 29, 2015 07:14
A noun can never have two case endings so it doesn't matter which comes first the dative plural ending is always applied to anna: annain i Valaron - i Valaron annain.

But I have more problems with this sentence: 'must (not) be squandered' is in fact the verb and not simply 'must'.
Either you could change it into something as "May the gifts of the Valar not be squandered": Nai annar i Valaron úvar vanwë; or if you really want to use mauya- you should use a passive infinitive: Lá mauya a-auta annain i Valaron.

Another alternative is the prefix ava- "not to be" with the -ima form of the verb, e.g. avaquétima "not to be said": Annar i Valaron nar ava-autimë.


Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
Nerdmeister
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on: April 29, 2015 07:16
Thanks for the reply dirk. It did give me the perspective I was looking for (as well is indirectly pointing out that I still have some issues getting my plurals right; my returning achilles heel in this endeavour ).
In this case though I would be loathe to change the core meaning of the sentence with the word ´nai´; once I have conjured up something to test my grammar, I prefer sticking with it as much as possible.
To combine some of your suggestions would you consider "Mauya annain i Valaron úvar vanwë" to be a feasibil translation?

Also I couple of extra questions have arisen, for me, from your answer:
1) I have learned that the passive participle is -ina, yet you use the ending -ima for ´passive infinitive´; an ending I have not yet encountered during my studies, I´m afraid. Could you elaborate for me the differences between the two?
2) When applying -ima to auta-, as it seems you have done, would that not create the diphtong -ai- (autaima)?
3) ´Vanwa´ is supposed to be the passive participle to auta-, as I have learned it, yet you substitute it with ´aut(a)ima´ as a passive infinitive. This might be connected to my 1) question but if not, then could you illuminate the reason for this substitution?

[Edited on 04/30/2015 by Nerdmeister]

[Edited on 04/30/2015 by Nerdmeister]
dirk_math
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on: April 29, 2015 08:02
1. -ima is an adjectival suffix to make a verb into something -able, e.g. mátima "edible". So it isn't a real participle. Prefixing this adjective with ava- makes it into avamátima "not to be eaten".
2. Of course, autaima with -ai- is correct
3. the passive infinitive equals the ordinary infinitive with a prefixed a-, so a-auta for the verb auta-, e.g. polis a-auta "it can be left"

Your other translation is not possible as your sentence contains two conjugated main verbs: mauya and úvar.
Yassë engë lómë, anarties calali.
Nerdmeister
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on: April 30, 2015 10:18
I thank you kindly for your insights on this issue and have added ´-ima´ to my personal notes on Quenya.
erutan2099
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on: August 06, 2015 06:26
dirk_math said:1. -ima is an adjectival suffix to make a verb into something -able, e.g. mátima "edible".


Due this adjectival ending apply to all nouns? I have looked for more information concerning this case ending but can't seem to find it.

For example: could I use it in conjunction with "ruc-" 'to fear' to make the adjective "fearful"?

Any information would be appreciated! Thanks.
-Erunámo -"Istyallo, Ilu."
Tamas Ferencz
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on: August 06, 2015 05:39
erutan2099 said:
dirk_math said:1. -ima is an adjectival suffix to make a verb into something -able, e.g. mátima "edible".


Due this adjectival ending apply to all nouns? I have looked for more information concerning this case ending but can't seem to find it.

For example: could I use it in conjunction with "ruc-" 'to fear' to make the adjective "fearful"?

Any information would be appreciated! Thanks.


As dirk_math said, the ending is applied to verbs (not nouns), and strictly speaking it's not a case ending but an adjectival suffix; and yes, it can be used with any verbal stem (where the resulting adjective makes sense). We have several attested examples given by Tolkien: carima 'doable' from car-; cénima 'visible' from cen-; avanyárima 'not to be said or related' (= unspeakable) from nyar-.

[Edited on 08/07/2015 by Tamas Ferencz]
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