Verbs 2

Quenya Grammar 1

Course 1 · Chapter 9 · Verbs 2

Quenya Grammar 1, Chapter 8 covered the aorist and present tenses, commands and negation. This chapter finishes the verb with the tenses of "then" and "later": the past, the perfect ("has done") and the future, plus the gerund and negation in every tense. The final chapter will then use all of it to read real text.

The idea in a box

Each Quenya tense has its own shape: the past adds -në, the future adds -uva, and the perfect adds a vowel in front, lengthens the stem and ends in -ië. Learn the pattern from the table, then check each new verb against a source.

The Full Verb Table

Here are the forms for the two verbs from Chapter 8, as printed on Wikipedia's page. Each cell is given in singular and plural, and the table adds the tenses you have not seen yet.

Tense	car- "make, do"	henta- "eye"
Aorist	carë, carir	henta, hentar
Present	cára, cárar	hentëa, hentëar
Past	carnë, carner	hentanë, hentaner
Future	caruva, caruvar	hentuva, hentuvar
Perfect	acárië, acárier	ehentië, ehentier
Gerund	cárië, cárier	hentië, hentier

The Past

The past is made with -në after the stem: carnë (from car-) and hentanë (from henta-). The plural is -r again: carner, hentaner. The page glosses carnen as "I made", showing the usual pronoun ending -n after the tense.

The Future

The future ends in -uva (plural -uvar): caruva, hentuva. The page glosses caruvan as "I shall make". Note that henta- drops its final -a before the ending (hentuva, not *hentauva); that is what the table shows, and the page gives no explanation.

The Perfect

The perfect says that an action has been completed: the page glosses acáriën as "I have made". It is built with a vowel placed in front of the stem and a lengthened stem vowel, followed by -ië: acárië from car- and ehentië from henta-. For car- the prefix is a- and for henta- it is e-. The page does not say whether this prefix is an "augment" or a repeated vowel, so this course just calls it the perfect prefix.

The Gerund

The gerund is the verb used as a noun, like English "making" in "making is hard". The forms are cárië and hentië, with plurals cárier and hentier. The page lists them but gives no gloss or description of their use, so this chapter gives no sentence for them.

An Irregular Verb: auta-

The verb auta- "depart, go away, disappear, be lost, pass away" has a mixed pattern, with the stem sometimes shortened to av- or va-. The page prints its forms:

Tense	Singular	Plural
Aorist	ava	avar
Present	avëa, auta	avëar, autar
Past	vánë, avantë	váner, avanter
Future	auva, autuva	auvar, autuvar
Perfect	(a)vánië	(a)vánier

# Quoted on the page from The Silmarillion
Auta i lómë!     The night is passing!
  auta   passes, departs   (present of auta-)
  i      the
  lómë   night

Negation in Every Tense

As in Chapter 8, a negative sentence uses the verb ua- plus the main verb in its impersonal form. The page prints this table for "I":

Tense	Affirmative	Negative	Meaning
Aorist	carin	uan / uin carë	I do not make
Present	cáran	uan cára / uan carë	I am not making
Past	carnen	uan carnë / únen carë	I did not make
Future	caruvan	uan caruva / úvan carë	I shall not make
Perfect	acáriën	uan acárië / uien carë	I have not made

Each tense has two ways to negate: ua- plus the tensed verb, or a tensed form of ua- (únen, úvan, uien) plus the plain stem carë. The page says that ua- could be fully conjugated in the formal register and in verse.

Watch out: what this chapter leaves out

My outline for this chapter included participles, but the page (as summarised) does not cover them, and it does not say what the perfect prefix is called or how the gerund is used. They are left out, not guessed. The page does not say that the aorist can stand for the future, either.

Watch out: the tables list variants

The page prints more than one form in some cells (vánë / avantë, auva / autuva), without saying which is preferred or whether they belong to different periods. Treat them as alternatives until a source says otherwise.

Not yet verified

All forms are from summaries of Wikipedia's "Grammar of late Quenya"; I did not read the page itself. The statements "the past is made with -në" and "the future ends in -uva" are my reading of the table; the summary quoted -uva as the future ending but did not state a rule for the past. My description of the perfect (prefix plus lengthened vowel plus -ië) is my own reading of acárië and ehentië. The explanation that henta- drops its -a before -uva is my reading of the table, and the summary gave none. The 'Auta i lómë' quotation is as reported in the summary; I did not check the line in The Silmarillion.

Sources for this chapter

Wikipedia, "Grammar of late Quenya" (verbs and negation sections), read through two summaries.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Fill in the six forms (aorist, present, past, future, perfect, gerund) of car- in the singular from the table, then add the pronoun ending -n to the past, future and perfect to make "I made", "I shall make" and "I have made".

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Exercise 2

Say "I did not make", "I shall not make" and "I have not made" in both ways of negating, using the table. Which forms are attested on the page?

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Exercise 3

Explain the sentence Auta i lómë! word by word, naming the tense of auta. Then list two things about auta- that make it irregular.

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Chapter 9 Quick Reference

Past: carnë, carner; hentanë, hentaner
Future: -uva / -uvar: caruva, hentuva
Perfect: prefix + lengthened stem + -ië: acárië, ehentië
Gerund: cárië, hentië
Negation: ua- forms with the plain stem (uan carnë, uan caruva, uan acárië)
Irregular auta- "depart": Auta i lómë! "The night is passing!"

Coming next

Quenya Grammar 1, Chapter 10 puts it all together: reading the attested lines and short texts, with a method, and a recap of the course.