Comments by Tom Bombadil
These are the 10 posts of 114 by Tom Bombadil.
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Tanen - in that way (Quenya)
Excuse me for asking this question, for i already know the answer, but what does "in that way" mean? It is the gloss of tanen (and sinen is glossed as "in this way"), but I remember very well how my English teacher, whose mother tongue was not English, told me that "in that way" does not exist and that no English person could understand that.
Excuse me again, just perfidy and thirst for revenge of an old pupil, but I would like to hear it from native speakers: You would accept that gloss and you would not demand that it must be "in this spirit", wouldn't you?
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Elision rule (Quenya)
Ok, nice. That allows me to count much quicker than before. It is pretty retarding that so many Quenya words start and result in a vowel. In this spirit I much prefer English, where most words result in a consonant (and many start with it too).
Anyway, it is a pity that elision and haplology are necessary to make the words sound acceptable, for both of these methods make it hard to understand what it means, especially if it will be a neologism/compound which becomes shortened and disfigured.
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Elision rule (Quenya)
When is it allowed/necessary to do elision at a word's end? I thought that it is always allowed to do this if the following word starts with a vowel too, like
Nando Ondoluncava -> Nand' Ondoluncava
Ruxala Ambonnar -> Ruxal' Ambonnar
Métima Auresse -> Métim' Auresse
Vénea Alcare -> Véne' Alcare
Tenna Ambar -> Tenn' Ambar
Síve Emme -> Sív' Emme
Sace i -> Sac' i
and
Lúmenna Omentielvo -> Lúmenn' Omentielvo.
If Lúmenn' Omentielvo hadn't exist, I would have thought that elision is just practised if the two vowels will be equal, but -a and o- aren't, so these theory doesn't work.
I am pretty shure that my former theory is right, but I would like to ask you too, especially because I just know eight examples. Furthermore I think that there should be much more known cases, if my rule (eliding the last vowel of a word if the next one starts with a vowel too) will be right.
So, I'll scan Namárie ...
....
... While I scan Namárie, I see that there are indeed not much cases where my rule is broken, and those which do that have good reasons on their side. Yéni, Eleni, Elentári and Míri must not be Yén', Elen', Elentár' and Mír' because the -i is necessary for the plural.
Mi and Ómaryo mustn't be m' and Ómary', because those words are impossible and maybe Varda mustn't be Vard' because Galadriel does not want to shorten these poetic name in her ... well ... in her poem.
And ... Hísie and Nai ... damned, I thought that I could proof my rule, but I destroyed it instead.
So now I'm asking you: What is the rule of elision? Is my one still right and the poetry-style is just wayward, as always?
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The Atmosphere layers' structure (Quenya)
Hi again. There are several names for several sky layers in Quenya, and now I am interested in their exact order, especially since I read that Aiwenor is the lowest of three.
So, those words which i know are: Aiwenor, Vilwa, Fanyare, Telume, Nurmenel, Tarmenel, Elenarda and Ilmen. Could we structure them? I'll start: As far as I understood, Elenarda and Ilmen are the same, but what about the others?
What is their exact order from bottom to top? Where is the difference between Vilwa and Aiwenor? Do all words describe a different part of sky, or are Tarmenel and Nurmenel maybe just umbrella terms, and Aiwenor is a part of Nurmenel? And what are the other two parts over Aiwenor?
Maybe Fanyare describes the middle region (Stratosphere, Mesosphere and Thermosphere) and Telume describes the higher region (Exosphere), and then Menel, Elenarda and Ilmen as the layer of stars?
I'll be grateful for every answer which can structure the heaven of Arda.
PS. Anyway, these layer of stars lets the whole business sound pretty Aristotelian/Ptolemaic. I think that the sky structure also changed during the fall of Númenor. Arda did not just become a planet instead of a discworld, but also the Universe's structure changed from Ptolemy to Newton and maybe even Hubble. Anyway, just a theory.
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Amatixe/Unutixe (Tengwar)
Could someone please explain what these things are, and wherefore they are needed in Tengwar? I neither know what kind of dots they describe nor what the "writing line" is.
PS. Are Amatixi all points and lines over the letters, like the diacritic marks for vowels? And are Unutixi all points and lines under the letters, like a pusta/putta, an upsilon, and a line to mark a double letter?
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One ring to rule them all
What about the suffix -ita? Wouldn't that fit best? As far as I know it is the particular infinitive which is required here.
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Rule for creation of frequentative/iterative (Quenya)
Thanks for your answer, but I forgot a further question during writing the first ones. What about verbs which don't result in a consonant but a vowel? Is any example known about them?
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Rule for creation of frequentative/iterative (Quenya)
Hello, I am searching for a method to make a verb frequentative. I think that I even found the rule, but there are still open-end questions, and I would be grateful if you helped me to complete my analysis ... or tell me that I am completely wrong with everything and that the rule is different.
I know about at least 11 frequentative verbs, but I had to guess about some of their basic forms. I will mark them with*.
So:
basic frequentative *car- cacarra- *nem- nenemma- *ul- ululla- *tul- tutulla- *quet- quequetta- sil- sisíla- sar-/psar- sapsarra- *talat- tatalat- tam- tampa- fir- fifíru- lav- lapsa- So, as far as I can evaluate this, this is the rule: The first two letters of the basic verb are duplicated. The last consonant becomes duplicated too and there will be an -a- added.
But these three rules do not describe all frequentative verbs, but just five of them. So we have to ask:
Why is the frequentative form of sil sisíla and not sisilla, Why is it sapsarra and neither sasarra nor psapsarra, Why is the frequentative form of talat tatalat and not tatalatta, Why is the frequentative form of tam tampa and not tatamma, Why is the frequentative form of fir fifíru and not fifirra, And why is the frequentative form of lav lapsa and not lalavva?
Maybe some of these anomalies are caused by the rules of the merging of two consonants? Maybe v + v can not be vv, but must be ps, or anything like that? I'm not sure about this, the only merging rules which I know are those:
-n + t- -> -nt- -n + p- -> -mp- -n + c- -> -ñc- -n + m- -> -mm- -n + l- -> -ll- -n + r- -> -rr- -n + s- -> -ss- -l + r- -> -ll- -l + n- -> -ld- So, do you have any ideas why six of the words do not follow my rule? Is my rule wrong?
I'll be grateful for every answer.
PS. It would also be helpful if you tell more frequentative verbs for I think that just 11 words are insufficient to deduce a general rule.
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Quenya questions
Hi again, I'm wondering about the Quenya syntax for a while. As far as I know it is usually "subject-verb-direct object-indirect object" in declarative sentences. I have read that questioning sentences are basically similar, but that the verb is at the sentence's end, like in "Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?".
Anyway I still have a problem with that rule: What if there is no object in the sentence? Then the verb is also at the end of a declarative sentence.
I mean: There might be a difference between "Lye nyára i quenta." and "Lye i quenta nyára?", but there is no difference between "Lye nyára." and "Lye nyára?" if there will be no object like "i quenta" (Lye nyára [...]. = Lye [...] nyára?). So how can these declarative sentences without objects distinguish from question sentences without objects?
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Rune Translation