@@@ derivation suggested by Tamas Ferencz, Aglardh 2021-02-18
Quenya
-carë
suffix. action, doing, making
cimba-
verb. to care
car-
verb. to do, make, to do, make, *act [take action]; [ᴹQ.] to build
Car- is the Quenya verb for “do, make”, derived from the root √KAR of the same meaning, and was very well established in Tolkien’s mind. ᴱQ. karin “I do, make” dates back all the way to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/45), and appeared regularly in Tolkien’s writings thereafter. Tolkien frequently used car- in examples of conjugating basic verbs, so the inflections of car- are pretty representative of Tolkien’s evolving notations of the Quenya verb system.
The English verb “do” has many specialized functions, such as in the formation of questions like “do you want to go?”. Quenya car- does not share many of those functions. Quenya car- serves as a “generic action” verb, in some sense acting like verbal pronoun, which can be substituted for a more specific verb. For example, in phrases like A carnë ta yallë B (carnë) “A did that as / like B (did)” (PE17/74) or ecuva nin carë sa nöa “I may do that tomorrow” (VT49/20), the verb car- is a placeholder for the specific action done, in the same way that ta and sa is a pronominal placeholder for the action as a noun.
The English verb “do” often requires a generic object like “it”, but that is not the case for Quenya car-: consider English “don’t do it” [with object] vs. Quenya áva carë [without object] (WJ/371) or the Quenya phrase á carë ancárië “try harder” (PE17/94), more literally “✱do [it] with more doing”. When car- has a specific direct object, it generally has the sense “make” or “build”, as in ma caruvalwë ohta “shall we make war” (PE22/161) or i carir quettar ómainen “those who form [make] words with voices” (WJ/391).
Conceptual Development: In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien had ᴹQ. karin “I make, build” under the root ᴹ√KAR {“make, do” >>} “make, build, construct” (Ety/KAR), and in this period kar- was more often glossed “make” rather than “do”, such as in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948. It could be that in the 1930s and 40s this verb was more limited in sense than it was earlier and later.
Neo-Quenya: Orondil suggested this verb can probably also be used intransitively for “to act” [= “take action”], especially given the suffix -carë often used as “action”. For a more distinctive verb for “to act, take action”, see [ᴺQ.] carta-.
alasaila ná lá carë tai mo nave mára
it is unwise not to do what one judges good
car-
verb. do, make
carë mára quí tyarë naxa
doing good may cause evil
ecuva nin carë sa nöa
I ‘may’ do that tomorrow, I have a chance of doing that [tomorrow]
ecë nin care sa
I can do that
na carë indómelya
thy will be done
The fourth line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The first word na “be” serves a subjunctive or imperative function, followed by carë “done”, the aorist or infinitive form of car- “to make, do”. This is followed by indómelya “thy will”, the second person singular polite possessive form of indómë.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
> na carë indóme-lya = “✱be done will-thy”
Conceptual Development: In earlier versions of this phrase (I-IV), Tolkien vacillated over whether to use á or na for the subjunctive/imperative element. Tolkien also used mendë for “will” instead of indómë in the early versions of the prayer, and he used different verb forms for car-: carina (I-IIa, likely a passive participle “done”) and cara (IIb-IV, perhaps a suffixed imperative).
There is a peculiar form carima in version V of the prayer, which resembles an adjective. Elsewhere, the suffix -ima has a function similar to the suffixes “-able, -ful” in English (PE17/68), which would give carima the meaning “do-able”, but this seems unlikely to be the intended meaning. This form carima is not a mistake, though, since Tolkien deliberately altered it from carina.
Helge Fauskanger suggested (LP-AM) that this sentence may be an example of an impersonal, subject-less sentence, meaning “[may it] be done your will”. There are other examples of Quenya verbs that can be used in such subject-less impersonal constructions, such as ora “[it] warns” (VT41/13), for your conscience (órë) warning you against an action.
|  I  |IIa|IIb|III|IV|V|VI| |na|á|na| |carina|cara|carima|care| |mendelya|indómelya|
nil-
verb. to love, *have special concern/care/interest for
uan carë
I do not make
uin carë
I do not make
á carë (sí) ancárië
try harder
áva carë
Don’t do it
hasiendë
noun. therapy, a process of treating medically
A neologism coined by Arael in the “Neologism of the Day” (NotD) series on the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS) posted at 2023-05-22, a noun form of hasa- “treat (medically)”.
incenda
noun. psychoanalysis, (lit.) mood-reading
ris-
verb. to attend to, tend, care for, mind
A neologism for “attend to, tend, care for, mind” coined by Luinyelle posted on 2024-10-06 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), inspired by G. grith- of the same meaning and based on a Neo-Root ᴺ√(G)RITH inspired by early ᴱ√gṛþ-. It has a past tense ritte, for example ritten yeldenya “I cared for/attended to my daughter”.
risuta-
verb. to bother, (lit.) make start to attend to/care about
rísë
noun. care, attention
A neologism for “care, attention” coined by Luinyelle posted on 2024-10-06 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), a noun form of ᴺQ. ris- [þ] “attend to, care for”.
An element meaning “action, doing, making” attested in words like lacarë “not-doing, inaction” (PE22/154), loicarë “mistaken action” (PE17/151), and saucarë “doing or making a thing very badly” (PE17/183), clearly based on √KAR “do, make”. It seems to be the infinitival form of the corresponding verb car-, but Tolkien stated in notes from the late 1960s that such a form was not infinitival when combined with other prefixes (PE22/154).
Conceptual Development: The English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s had the similar form ᴱQ. karo “act, action, deed” (PE15/68, 71), also mentioned in the Early Qenya Grammar with the gloss “deed” (PE14/45, 75).
Neo-Quenya: In theory the independent form carë could also be a noun meaning “action”, but more likely it is just the infinitive “to do, to make”, and the proper independent noun is carda “deed, ✱action”.