TOLKIEN
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Languages |
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Quenya INTRODUCTION Quenya, probably the most famous language of Professor JRR Tolkien is
a highly inflecting and agglutinating language spoken by the High Elves of Middle-earth.
Here, I have attempted to present the basic information concerning this
language in a concise and orderly fashion. I have used logical extrapolations
of unknown forms quite freely, so this is not intended to be an extensive
course in the many intricacies of the Quenya language and its history in its
evolution, but a simple resource for the quick learner, and is intended for
those who have a basic general grammatical understanding. If anyone notices
any major discrepancies in my explanations or has found any reliable
forms that I am here missing, please let me known; I would be most grateful! CONTENTS Compared to many European languages, the sounds of Quenya
are not particularly exotic, but these sounds are ordered in an unusually
tidy manner, making many other languages look comparatively rather messy. Quenya has five simple vowels a, e,
i, o, u, all of which are tense and are represented in the IPA with
the values /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. Each vowel
may also be long, in which case an acute accent is placed above the vowel:
á, é, í, ó, ú. This distinction between long and short is phonemic, as we
can see from minimal pairs such as cu /ku/, ‘dove’ vs. cú /ku:/, ‘crescent’. In his transliteration of Quenya in
the Roman alphabet, Tolkien usually placed diaeresis (two juxtaposed dots)
over word-final -e in polysyllabic words to indicate to English (and presumably
French) speakers that this final vowel should be properly pronounced.
Therefore, the Quenya word tyellë, ‘grade’, is pronounced /t'elle/, and ve is /ve/. Tolkien also used diaeresis over one of a pair of sequential
vowels that are not diphthongs, again to clarify pronunciation. As well as five simple vowels (or monophthongs),
Quenya has six diphthongs; three in -i: ai, oi, ui (which are
said to be rising, meaning that they receive stress on the second of
the vowel sounds) and three in -u: au, eu, iu (which are said
to be falling, meaning that they receive stress on the first of the
vowel sounds), however the last two diphthongs, eu and iu are
quite rare. Any other combination of vowels are not diphthongs but two
separate syllables, and in some cases this is emphasised by the use of
diaeresis. Such words with vowels in hiatus (next to one another, but
not producing a diphthong) include fëa, ‘soul’, lëo, ‘shade’, coa,
‘house’, and tië, ‘path’. By the Third Age, Quenya had
twenty-four phonemic consonants, and two phonic consonants. They are
represented below in their IPA values, the phonemic consonants in blue, and the phonic
consonants in red:
StopsThe basic Quenya stops /p, b, t,
d, k, g/ are transliterated as p,
b, t, d, c, g in the Roman script. Note that because of Tolkien’s
Latin-like transliteration of Quenya, c and g are always stops; they must never be reduced to fricatives or affricatives,
therefore the words cil- ‘to mean, intend’ and gil, ‘star’,
must always be pronounced as /kil/ and /gil/, respectively, never as /sil/, /tSil/, /Til/, /dZil/, /Zil/ or anything of that sort. The sound /t'/ is palletised /t/ and is transliterated as ty, but this is
sounded as /tj/ between vowels.
The sounds / k½/ and /g½/ are labialised velars transliterated as qu
and gw. The former of these two sounds would be transliterated as cw,
but following the Latin-like orthography and aesthetic value, it is not.
Fricatives The fricatives /f, v, s, h/ are transliterated with their same characters in the
Roman alphabet, but take note that the letter h is also used in
several digraphs (read on), in which case it does not necessarily
represent its IPA value. The /C/ sound is the German ich-Laut, or the sound found at the
beginning of the English word huge; it is represented by the
digraph hy is transliteration. The fricative /h/ has three possible allophonic realisations. At the beginning
of a word, h has its IPA value, but between vowels it is realised as a
[x] sound, as in the word aha
[axa], ‘wrath’. It also produces a
[x] sound when between a back
vowel (i.e. a, o or u) and the t sound, for example in
the words pahta ["paxta], ‘closed’, ohta
["oxta], ‘war’, and nuhta-
["nuxta], ‘to stunt’.
However, when between a front vowel (i or e) and t, it
is realised as the sound represented by hy, /C/, for example in the words ehtë [eCte], ‘spear’, rihta- [riCta], ‘to jerk’. Nasals The nasal sounds /m/ and /n/ are
transliterated as m and n, respectively. The sounds /n'/ and /n½/ are the palletised and
labialised versions of /n/, of which /n'/ becomes the cluster /nj/ between vowels. The
velar nasal /N/ is produced only as an allophone of /n/ when it is followed by a
velar consonant (i.e. c, qu, g or gw). Trills
The alveolar trill of Quenya is equal
to that in Spanish, Welsh or Russian, and is transliterated as r, and
sometimes as hr. The latter digraph represents a previously voiceless
trill found at an older stage of the language, but by the Third Age, this
sound had merged with the voiced trill in pronunciation, but remained written
as it always had been, as in words such as hrívë /"ri:ve/, ‘winter’. Its palletised variant /r'/ becomes /rj/ between
vowels. Laterals The alveolar lateral /l/ is never velarised like in the English word school [sku5], but is
always clear as in the English word let /let/. Like r, l also had a voiceless counterpart,
written as hl which also merged with voiced l, but words that
previously had this sound remain written with in, such as hlócë /"lo:ke/, ‘serpant, dragon’. The palletised lateral /l'/ becomes /lj/ when between
vowels, just like the previous palletised consonants. Approximants The labiovelar sounds /w/ and /W/ are voiced
and voiceless, respectively. They are transliterated as w and hw
in Quenya, and while rare, the sound hw does represent a
voiceless sound still in the Third Age, unlike the sounds transliterated as hr
and hl, which were voiceless, but are no longer. The other approximant
/j/ is transliterated as y,
which, along with w Tolkien noted as being the two major departures
from the Latin-like spelling of Quenya. Double Consonants When
a consonant is geminated within a word, it must be distinctly pronounced
twice. This distinction between long and short consonants (like with vowels)
is phonemic, thus we have such minimal pairs as ana /ana/, ‘towards’ vs. anna
/anna/, ‘gift’, tyelë /t'ele/, ‘ceases’vs. tyellë
/t'elle/, ‘grade’, and ata /ata/, ‘again’ vs. atta
/atta/, ‘two’. The stress rule of Quenya, like the orthography, seems to have been
adopted from Latin by Professor Tolkien. Words of one syllable pose no
problem to the question of where to place the stress for they only have only
syllable to be stressed, and words of two syllables receive stress on the
first syllable. For words of more than two syllables, the stress rule gets a
little more complicated. Words of such form are usually stressed on the
penultimate (last but one) syllable, but only if the nucleus of the syllable
(the syllabic part, i.e. the vowel) is long, followed by a consonant cluster
(and one must keep in mind that digraphs represented in the table of
consonants above) or is a diphthong. If the penultimate syllable does not
qualify any of this criteria (i.e. it is short, followed by only one or no
consonants or is a simple vowel), then word stress is shifted back to the
antepenultimate (last but two) syllable, no matter what the nucleus of this
syllable is. Quenya’s
rules stating which sounds may not appear together give the language a
distinct flavour. Quenya does not allow consonant clusters at the beginning
of words, so when the High Elves adapted the name that the Woses had for
themselves, Drughu, it became Rú in their tongue. Quenya also
does not allow the voiced stops to occur freely; they must be part of a
consonant cluster, namely: mb, nd, rd, ld or
ng. These consonant clusters could only appear medially, but there were
other clusters that Tolkien cited as ‘frequent’ or ‘favoured’: mp, nt, nc,
nqu, ngw, ps, ts, x (for cs), as well as many double consonants.
At the end of words, only the consonants -t, -s, -n, -r and -l,
but most common was a vowel, usually -a. Consonant cluster cannot
appear at the end of words either, with but one exception: the cluster -nt
appears as the dual dative ending for certain nouns, for example of cirya,
‘ship’, the dual dative is ciryant. One more important phonological
constraint on Quenya to remember is that a long vowel cannot occur before a
consonant cluster. English only has two numbers, singular and plural.
Quenya has these same numbers, plus two other; namely dual and partitive
plural. The singular and plural numbers are used as in English; as for
the dual number, it is used to indicate a pair of things, or two things that
naturally go together, like a pair of hands for example; and the partitive
plural is used to denote some or a few or part of the main
group, which would be the “normal” plural number. Quenya is a highly inflecting language, so where in English a noun
can have only two or three forms, a noun in Quenya may have approximately
forty forms. Quenya’s nine cases are: Nominative: used to
indicate the subject of the verb. There is no special mark for the nominative
singular, which is the simplest form of any noun, and is the form found in
lexicons and wordlists. See the inflictions table below for the other numbers
in this case. Accusative: used to
denote the direct object of the verbal action. In archaic Quenya, this
was indicated by lengthening of the final vowel, if there was one, but this
distinction was later lost, and was not used in the “mature” form of the
language spoken at the end of the Third Age of the Sun in Middle-Earth, but
is still indicated in the table of inflections below. Dative: used to indicate
the indirect object of the verb; often translated in English as the
accusative noun or pronoun proceeded by the prepositions to or for.
This case is marked by final -n. Genitive: used generally to
correspond to the English genitive ending -’s, however it also covers the English “noun1 of noun2” construction. This case
is marked, in the singular, by final -o,
which displaces the vowel -a when
final. In the plural, this case ending is expanded to -on that must be added onto the nominative plural of
the noun. Possessive: used to give
generally the same English translation as the genitive, however it usually
functions to denote ownership, possession or something that is made from
a certain material, or by a certain person. Locative: used to give
the meaning in, on or even at
the noun that is inflicted for this case. Allative: has the meaning
to, into or upon. Ablative: has the meaning
from, out of or away from. Instrumental: used to
denote the instrument by which the verbal action is completed, or the
reason that it happens. It is often translated into English as by, with or using. There is another case mentioned by Tolkien, and some have called it
the respective case. It displays final -s, yet its function is wholly unknown, Tolkien
never gave any explanation of it and it is never seen in any of Tolkien’s
works, so we shall leave it be here. Below is a table indicating full inflictions on nouns for all four
numbers, each of the nine case for nouns ending in either vowels or
consonants:
1 these endings are infact only for nouns that end
in consonants other than -t or -d. Nouns ending in these two consonants
take the endings stated as those for nouns ending in vowels, but insert an
epenthetic -e- before the dual ending. 2 this ending only applies to singular nouns in the
vowels -a, -o, -u. 3 this ending is for singular nouns in all
consonant, but also for nouns in -e, in which case, it displaces this
final vowel. 4 this distinction is not made in “mature” Quenya
in the singular, only in the archaic form of the language; the accusative is
generally marked simply by syntax. 5 the final vowel of the word is made long. 6 the
genitive singular marker is added straight to nouns in all vowels, except for
nouns in -a, then
the genitive marker displaces this final vowel. The partitive plural locative, allative and ablative, for nouns
ending in both vowels and consonant, may take the final consonant (either -n or -r) in
brackets in the above table, but do not need to necessarily since the -li-
or -lí-
already indicates the partitve plurality. Below are examples of five different nouns fully inflected for case
and number: CIRYA n.c. ship
LASSË n.c. leaf
NAT n. thing
ELEN n. star
ALCAR n.a. brilliance
THE ARTICLE Quenya, unlike English, only has one article; the
definite article, which is i meaning the, and is indeclinable.
Because of the lack of an indefinite article (which in English is a, an),
a noun without the article may simply be translated as the noun by itself, or
the noun following the indefinite article. In Quenya, there are two main groups of verbs: basic
or primary verbs that end in consonants, and a-stem or derived
verbs that end with -a, which is often part of one of the endings -ta
or -ya (both of which are causative endings). Quenya has five known tenses (it is probable that
Tolkien imagined more than five, but only five appear in published material).
These tenses are the aortist, present continuous, past, perfect and future. The aortist is used to described timeless
truths, and is usually translated as the simple present tense in English.
Basic verbs take the suffix -ë if used alone, but -i if the
verb then takes any suffixes for number or person, and a-stem verbs undergo
no additions or reductions at all. Examples: basic verb:
matë (eats), but matin (I eat); a-stem verb:
lanta (falls) The present continuous is formed for basic
verbs by suffixing -a and lengthening the stem vowel, and for a-stem
verbs, it is formed simply by lengthening the stem vowel, since the stem
already ends in -a, no other additions are necessary. Examples: basic verb:
máta; a-stem verb: lánta The past tense is
used to describe an action that happened in the past, usually with a time
definition as to when exactly in the past. For a-stem verbs, the suffix -në
is added straight onto the a-stem. For basic verbs, the formation of the past
tense is slightly more complex. Usually, the -në is suffixed straight
onto the stem of the verb, such as is with verbs like cen- and tir-,
since consonant clusters such as nn and rn are permissible in
Quenya phonology, however, if the basic stem ends in an unvoiced stop, i.e. -c,
-p or -t, then the past tense is formed by a process known as nasal
infixion. This means that for basic verbs ending in -c or -t,
that the -n- of the suffix -në is infixed before the
final consonant, however for stems ending in -p, the infixion is of -m-
instead of -n-. Examples: basic verb:
in -c: tancë (from tac-), in -t: hantë
(from hat-), in -p: tompë (from top-);
a-stem verb: lantanë The perfect tense denotes an action completed
in the past, but it still relevant to the present time, and is in English I
have done, I have gone etc, however in Quenya it is expressed in
one single verb. In the perfect tense, all verbs take the suffix -ië.
With a-stem verbs, this ending displaces the final -a, and if the verb
ends in -ya, this entire ending is displaced. Then (and this applies
to both groups of verbs), the stem vowel is lengthened (but only if not
preceding a consonant cluster), but not before that particular vowel is augmented
or reproduced at the beginning of the verb in question, therefore this
augmented vowel is always identical to the stem vowel. Examples: basic verb:
amátië (from mat-); a-stem verb: alantië
(from lanta-; note that this form is not alántië
with a long a because of the following consonant cluster, nt) The future tense simply describes an action
that will happen sometime in the future. All verbs in the future tense
display the ending -uva. With basic verbs, this ending is suffixed
straight onto the stem, but for a-stem verbs, final -a or -ya
is displaced before this ending. Examples: basic verb:
matuva; a-stem verb: lantuva Number agrees in person, in plural only. This is
done simply by adding an -r to the verb with its ending for tense if
no other endings for person are to be attached afterward. Examples:
with singular subject: máta; with plural subject: mátar Agreement for person is achieved by suffixing the appropriate pronominal ending to the verb, after the tense ending. These endings are as follows:
1 Note that this pronominal ending is nowhere attested
in any of Tolkien’s materials, but a mere extrapolation from the pronoun of
equal meaning in one of Quenya’s sister languages, namely Sindarin. 2 This pronominal ending may also be used as an
object pronoun suffix after a subject pronoun that must be in its “full” form
(this only applies to the first two pronouns in the above list of course). Example: the verb na-, “to be” fully
inflicted for person in the aortist tense:
Quenya has three attested moods; infinitive,
imperative and negative; the subjunctive however, is
somewhat uncertain. The infinitive for a-stem verbs is no different
to the a-stem itself, for basic verbs the ending -ë is added. Examples:
basic verb: matë; a-stem verb: lanta The imperative is formed in the same way as
the infinitive, but with an extra addition denoting whether the command is
positive or negative. For positive commands, á is used before the
imperative stem, and áva is used if the command is to be negative. Examples: basic verb:
positive á matë; negative áva matë; a-stem verb:
positive á lanta; negative áva lanta The negative may be formed in two different
ways. The first involves a negative verb, meaning loosely “I don’t, you
don’t, he doesn’t…”, “I not, you not, he nots…” or “I am not, you are not, he
is not…” etc. and is used before the infinitive of the verb which is being negated.
This negative verb is úmë in the past tense, and umë in the
aortist tense (or umi- before a pronominal or plural ending) and úva
in the future. The second way of forming the negative is, in comparison to
the negative verb, far easier. This is by inserting the word lá,
meaning not, don’t or doesn’t, before the finite verb that is
being negated. Examples: basic verb:
umin matë or lá matin; a-stem verb: umin lanta
or lá lantan The subjunctive, although very obscure, we
are given one clue to this mood. This is the form nai, which is a
finite form of the highly “irregular” verb na- “to be”. This form is
used with a verb in the future tense to mean be it that/may it be verb
in the future. This could mean that the subjunctive in Quenya is formed
by suffixing -i to the indicative of an a-stem verb, and perhaps -ai
to a basic verb, but this is mere speculation, and so I would suggest this
extrapolated conjugation should be avoided. ADJECTIVES Adjectives in Quenya end in most usually in -a,
sometimes -ë and occasionally in consonants, but never in the vowels -o
or -u. Within a sentence, adjectives are generally used before the
noun that they describe, except for demonstratives (see below) that are used
after the noun. Number In Quenya, adjectives agree in number (plural only), but not case, with the noun that they qualify. Final -a changes to -ë, final -ë becomes -i, final -ëa becomes -ië, and if the adjective end in a consonant, -i is added. Examples: with singular
subject: vanya; with plural subject: vanyë with singular subject: carnë; with plural
subject: carni with singular subject: laurëa; with plural
subject: laurië with singular subject: firin; with plural subject: firini Comparison English has two forms of comparison for
adjectives; the suffix -er on an adjective makes it into the comparative
form (he is taller than me), and the suffix -est makes it into
the superlative form (he is the tallest). Quenya does not have
an equivalent form of the comparative adjective, but instead, it uses the
simple adjective with preposition la, meaning beyond. So, where
English would say, “he is taller than me”, Quenya would say, “he is tall
beyond me”; which in Quenya would be: Narë tunda la ni. High Elvish does however have an equivalent to the
superlative form of the adjective. This is formed by prefixing an- to
the adjective. If the adjective begins with a vowel, no change is made to it
or the prefix, but if the -n- from the prefix an- would clash
with the first consonant of the adjective to form an impossible consonant
cluster, then the -n- is assimilated, to give a double consonant
immediately after the a-. This only happens when the adjective begins
with l-, r-, s- or m-, examples include: an + lauca warm
– allauca warmest an + ringa cold
– arringa coldest an + sarda hard
– assarda hardest an + moina dear – ammoina
dearest Demonstratives Demonstratives are words for this, that (in
the singular) these and those (in the plural). English only has
two in the singular, but Quenya has four. They are: sina (this)
which is used for something here, in the present; tana (that)
which is used for something there, in the present; enta (that)
which is used for something yonder, or in the future; and yana (that)
which is used for something former, or in the past. These words behave like
normal adjectives, but they are generally used after the noun that
they qualify unlike other adjectives which are generally used before their
noun. Active participles (adjectives ending in -ing
in English) are formed from a-stem verbs by adding the suffix -la. For
basic verbs, this same ending is added to the present continuous form of the
verb. Active participles behave just like other adjectives, except they do
not agree in number. Passive participles (adjectives ending in -ed
or -en usually in English) are formed for a-stems by adding -na
straight onto the stem, and often to basic verb stems also, if the -n-
forms a legal cluster with the final consonant of the basic stem, but if not,
the ending -ina is instead suffixed. Also, for basic stems, if the
stem ends with -l, -da is added, instead of -na. ADVERBS Adverbs can be formed from adjectives to make
pairs such as deep (adjective), deeply (adverb); firm
(adjective), firmly (adverb); and great (adjective), greatly
(adverb). In Quenya, this is done by suffixing -vë to the simple
adjective, if it ends in -a. However, if the adjective ends in -ë,
this is changed to -i before the adverbial ending, -vë. There
are also basic adverbs that are not derived from adverbs, and are not
predictable in form. These are usually adverbs of time, and are listed in the
lexicon. PREPOSITIONS All of the following prepositions are followed by
the nominative, apart from those where the case that must follow is
indicated in brackets: amba or ama up, upwards an for, to ana or na to, towards apa after ara beside, outside arta across as with, alongside arwa having, with (followed by genitive) enga except, save et out of (followed by ablative) hequa except ho from (the speaker’s point of view being outside
the thing left) imbë between la beyond mi in (mí in the) mir or minna into nu under or above, over ter or terë through undu beneath, down, under ve as, like yá ago (this is infact a postposition,
not a preposition, meaning that it precedes the noun, just like the English
postposition, ago) yo with, alongside PRONOUNS The possessive pronominal endings are closely
related to the pronominal endings; the general difference is that the final -ë
has been displaced by an -a since they are adjectival. They are
suffixed directly to the noun, unless it ends in a consonant then a
connection vowel is inserted, usually -e-, except before the 1st
person singular possessive pronominal ending, then the preferred connection
vowel is -i-.
Interrogative pronouns:In English initial wh- is frequent on many
question words; in Quenya, initial ma- has similar connotations, but
unlike the English wh- may be used as an interrogative participle by
itself at the beginning of a question without a question word. The known
interrogative pronouns are: man who mana what manen how “Why” and “when” are most uncertain, but as for
“where”, we could extrapolate massë: ma-, the
interrogative participle, with the locative ending, -ssë to mean
something like “in what location”. A circumlocution for “when” could
be malúmessë, literally meaning “at what time”, and for “why”, matyarenen
could be used since it literally means “by what cause”. Relative pronouns:The definite article, i, can be used
as a relative pronoun in reference to a person, meaning who, but is
indeclinable (meaning that it may not take endings for case or number). There
is also the relative pronoun ya that is declinable, and usually
means that or which. Also, írë means when as a
relative pronoun only, never as an interrogative. Independent Pronouns An alternative to using pronominal endings on the verb is to use independent pronouns, but these are also used when an ending for case is to be attached to the independent pronoun to indicate an object in a case other than accusative; these case endings are always attached to the subject pronouns, never the object pronouns. Subject pronouns:
* this pronoun means one, someone or you
in the indefinite sense. Object
pronouns:
Emphatic Pronouns Emphatic pronouns are another type of independent
pronouns, but put emphasis on the person doing the action described by the verb.
They have no specific English translation, but, for example, the use of the
first person singular emphatic pronoun would imply something like: “I, myself”, “even I” or “I and no one else”. The known emphatic
pronouns are as follows:
It is plausible that the second person
singular/plural informal emphatic pronoun could be eccë, the 1st
person dual emphatic pronoun could be elvë and that the 3rd
person plural emphatic pronoun could be entë, however what the 3rd
person singular emphatic pronouns may be is slightly more obscure. One
possibility could be to extrapolate from the possessive pronominal ending -rya
to give eryë as an indiscriminate 3rd person singular
emphatic pronoun, or from the masculine and feminine pronominal endings, -ro
and -rë giving us ero and erë as the 3rd
person masculine and feminine emphatic pronouns (respectively). NUMBERS
Quenya works on a duodecimal system; that is, a
system based on numbers in twelves, and only the numbers from one to twelve
are known. Higher numbers could be circumlocated by adding them together,
i.e. using the conjunction ar (and) between them. minë one atta two neldë three canta four lempë five enquë six otso seven tolto eight nertë nine cainen ten minquë eleven rasta twelve The ordinal numbers are all basic adjectival forms
of the cardinal nouns, but do not all follow exactly the same pattern: minya first atya/attëa second nelya/neldëa third cantëa fourth lempëa fifth enquëa sixth otsëa seventh toltëa eighth nertëa ninth quainëa tenth minquëa eleventh rastëa twelfth VERBS “TO BE” The verb to be is notoriously irregular in
many languages, and this applies to Quenya too. There are two verbs in Quenya
that correspond to the verb to be in English; these are the forms na-
and ëa-. The only attested forms of the stem na- are the
aortist singular na and plural nar, but other forms have since
been logically extrapolated: Aortist: na- Present continuous: ná- Past: né- Future: nauva- The perfect could be ánië- but this seems somewhat
unlikely and unnecessary. The infinitive could be nië, which seems
relatively plausible. We also have the form nai that could be
the subjunctive. This entire verb corresponds simply to the English be,
when describing the attributes to something or someone. The form ëa-
however, is more usually used to correspond to the English exist, and
Tolkien used it rather than na- to describe the location or mere
existence or presence of something or someone. The attest examples of this
verb are ëa being the present continuous, aoritst singular and the
imperative. The form ëa could also be the infinitive, the past could
be regularly, ëanë, or irregularly, engë, and the future
is most likely euva, but again, the perfect form seems hard to
reconstruct with confidence. STEM VARIATION It is sometimes the case that
Quenya nouns (abstract, concrete and proper) will change their stem slightly
before any endings for case or number are attached. Often this variation is
unpredictable, but there are a few patterns which stem variation sticks to:
nouns ending in -n often change this to -nd (especially proper
nouns); words ending in -s often change this to -ss, as
well as other consonants that form doubles; final nasals sometimes alternate;
final -o and -e sometimes appear as -u and -i,
respectively; final -u following a nasal sometimes appears as -w;
occasionally stem vowels lengthen, sometimes the vowel before final
consonants is lost, producing a consonant cluster which may only appear
before another syllable, and occasionally nouns ending in -e that
would normally take their plural in -i instead keep their final -e
if there is a preceding long stem vowel, and then take their plural in -r.
Stem variation is indicated in brackets in the lexicon. |
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