Your Sindarin Textbook
Chapter Seven, Lesson Four: Analogy
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Just when you thought you had the Sindarin tenses down, it turns out that the people of Middle-earth didn't. What we can figure is that there are two basic types of past tense. Past tenses that strip the verb down to its ancient root, and nasalize the ending, double, or lengthen its vowel. This sort of past tense is called the "Strong" past tense. The other type is two different suffixes put onto the root, which is called the "Weak" past tense. We learned both of those last lesson, but we haven't truly gotten to the difficult part yet. Many verbs have both. The reason that Thorsten suggests is Analogy. Analogy is a system of logic that can change the structure of a language over time. In cases like this, it happens because the speakers don't quite remember the correct conjugation of a verb, so they make an analogy with another verb and change it in the same way. It is by this theory that many linguists believe English lost much of its complex past tense for the "-ed" suffix, and why nowadays, many "-ed" suffixes are replaced with complex past tenses. Take the English word, "to catch". It's conjugation analogy used to be something like this: Snatch, snatched: But it changed to: Teach, taught: Fascinating, right? Tolkien probably thought so too. So, who would be using these analogous conjugations? The young elves, the elves who learned Sindarin as a second language, and the humans. Old elves who knew Doriath long before the sun first rose would be using the old conjugations that we learned in the previous lesson. So basically, we're learning how those new to the language make mistakes and re-invent the grammar. Quick, before we start: This means that the "Special Cases" of the mutation charts are likely to be ignored as well. I-Verbs Acting Like A-VerbsWhen I-verbs play dress-up as A-verbs, they put on the A-verbs' suffixes: -ant and -as/-ast. This means that you will have to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs. The process takes a few steps. Remember the infinitive form? Put the verb into that for starters. Heb- → Hebi "to keep" Then add the appropriate past tense suffix, and delete the -i. If the infinitive ends with -iri, then don't delete the -i. Hebi → Hebant "it kept" And you already know how to make the rest of the conjugations for the other pronouns, but here is the chart again just to help you remember. Hebant → Hebannen "I kept" So, for this type, just add -ant. This is particularly rampant amongst the roots ending in -el. I would suggest using this form amongst children or those who are really unfamiliar with Sindarin, like Elven children or Gondorians trying their hand at sounding noble. Note that the intransitive suffix has been lost at this point. Heb- → Hebant "it kept" Now we have to deal with an interesting phenomenon called "Re-analysis". Some of these verbs are turned into new A-verbs, like: Tir- → Tira- and Tiria- Then, in an attempt to sound more like the older Sindar, a whole new set of mistakes takes place. A-verbs Acting Like I-verbsThis set of mistakes occurs when the consonant before the -a is like the consonant at the end of an I-verb. The -a gets stripped off and the word is conjugated like an I-verb (though the past tense is with an -e- instead of an -i-.) leading to conjugations like this:
But by now, I-verbs and A-verbs have gotten so mixed up that no one knows which is which, so a new system is born for verbs which have these simple endings. The conjugations that are supposed to sound archaic (whether they actually are or not) are marked with "†". Verbs ending in -ir- are conjugated according to the following pattern:
Other verbs that end in -r, -ra, or -l are conjugated according to the following pattern:
Verbs ending in -dh, -w, and -n are conjugated according to the following pattern:
Verbs ending in -d/-da are conjugated according to the following pattern:
Verbs ending in -b/-ba, -f/-va, and -g/-ga are conjugated according to the following pattern:
There are however, A-verbs which aren't so easily messed with. They have complex endings to them, coming from old Common Eldarin suffixes. Therefore, the verbs that sound like they could come from these complex endings, whether they actually do or not (like Tiria-) don't get messed with. Here are a few: Common Eldarin -jā → Sindarin -ia Berjā → Beria- "protect" Common Eldarin -tā → Sindarin -tha, -na, and -da (though -da often gets put into the "simple endings" pile) Thintā → Thinna- "fade into evening" And there you have it. Sindarin verbs are a mess. Homework |
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