Subjunctive in Quenya

PE14/59; PE15/48; PE17/75; PE21/61; PE22/138

Palmer System

Propositional modality

Epistemic modality is concerned with the speaker's attitude towards whether the proposition is true. There are three types which are common in languages:

• (speculative) an expression of uncertainty, e.g. En. may: Where is John? I'm not sure, he may be in his office now
• (deductive) an indication of inference from evidence, e.g. En. must: Yes, the lights are on, so John must be in his office now
• (assumptive) an indication of inference from experience , e.g. En. will: It's nine o'clock — John will be in his office now

There is then two-way distinction between:

• strength of the conclusion (epistemical possibility vs necessity)
• source of the inference (evidence vs experience)

In many languages one of these contrasts is either the only one present in the system or the more important one.

Some languages have ways to indicate that the judgement is either weaker or stronger. English, for instance, uses the past tense forms of the modals. These express a lower degree of commitment.

• may becomes might
• must becomes should (or less commonly ought to)
• will becomes would (or could)

Propositional modality in Quenya

Quenya possesses epistemical possibility-necessity contrast with further differentiation in strength. There is no evidence for inference contrast, and it's assumed that either deductive and/or assumptive would be translated as unmarked future.

Speculative

Tolkien provided several contradicting paradigms for uncertain statements:

• EVS1 (PE22/98): strong ai
• QVS (PE22/122-3): strong ai, weak au
• EVS2 (PE22/139, 1951): ?strong ai
  • ai tuluvanye “I may come”
• LVS7 (PE22/154, 21-1969): strong cé, ?weak quí (see on Unreality)
  • lá caritas alasaila *cé nauva “not doing this may prove unwise”
  • carë mára *quí tyarë naxa “doing good ?may cause evil”

Note that modal particle should directly precede the verb (PE22/97). Otherwise it is interpreted as a conjunction if:

• cé mo formenna tentanes Amanna “if northwards, it pointed towards Aman”

(Also see on Optative)

Deductive & Assumptive

No examples of deductive exists. No clear example of assumptive exists, but we can make an educated guess.

Event modality

Event modality refers to events which have not taken place yet. The distinction is drawn between conditioning factors, which are:

• external to the subject (he is permitted or ordered to act);
• internal to the subject (he is able and/or willing to act);

Deontic

Similarly to epistemic modality, deontic modality distinguishes between:

• deontic possibility (permissive), e.g. En. can (less often may): You can go now
• deontic necessity (obligative), e.g. En. must: You must go now

Additionally we can consider commissive, where speaker commits themself to do something. In English it is signalled by the modal verb shall. "You shall not pass!" — where Gandalf commits himself to ensuring that the balrog will not pass the bridge — is a canonic example of commissive.

Just as with epistemic modals, the force of the judgements can be weakened:

• can becomes could (may becomes might)
• must becomes should

Deontic modality in Quenya

Tolkien did not explicitly talk about permission and obligation in Quenya, but we have a few words which might fit the slot.

• permissive:
  • ?nai < NAY “have opportunity, chance or permission; be allowed by circumstance or way of the world”;
    • This mostly used where the opportunity or permission is certain or very probable
    • Overlaps with optative nai
  • ?ecë: ecë nin? 'please, may I?';
  • ?lerta: lertan quetë 'I can (am free to) speak' (there being no obstacle, of promise, secrecy, duty)
    • Can be interpreted as abilitive of circumstance
• obligative:
  • moa < N. bui 'I must'
  • inya karie·te 'I have to make it';
  • (neg) vá caris i 'he is not to do it';
• commissive:
  • (pos) future: vanda sina termaruva Elenna·nóreo alcar enyalien “This oath shall stand in memory of the glory of the Land of the Star”
    • Such use of future can be seen in e.g. French: Vous l'aurez demain
  • (neg) vá + future: vá matuvatye mastanya “you shan’t eat my bread”

Dynamic

Dynamic modality expresses the ability and willigness (in English done with can and will respectively). In many languages there is no formal distinction between permission and ability. In English, however, the distinction is in that may is not used to indicate ability.

Dynamic modality in Quenya

Abilitive is expressed in Quenya with lexical verbs:

• physical ability:
  • polë: polin quetë 'I can (able to) speak' (PE17/181)
  • (inherent physically or mentally): curu (PE22/151)
• learned ability: istan quetë 'I can (know how to) speak' (PE17/155, cf. French savoir: il sait nager 'he can swim')
• circumstantial ability/possiblity:
  • ?lertan quetë 'I can (am free to) speak' (there being no obstacle, of promise, secrecy, duty) (PE17/160)
  • evë (PE22/151)
  • ecë: ecuva nin carë sa nöa “I ‘may’ do that tomorrow, I have a chance of doing that tomorrow”
    • may in gloss seems to disqualify this verb (but it is in quotes?)

Volitive is only attested in negative constructions:

• (neg) vá: itas vá tuluvanye 'in that case I won't come'

Imperative

Most languages have a specific form that can be identified as Imperative. In languages such as English, where the modal systems are marked by modal verbs, the imperative is quite independent of them. But notionally, imperative is closely associated with deontic modals.

Unlike in English, in Quenya Imperative is a part of its modality system, expressed by an optional particle á.

• imperative proper: á tule 'come' (PE22/140);
• jussive: á he tuluvar 'let them come in' (PE22/106);
• hortative: (PE14/59 had hortative the same as imperative and jussive)
• prohibitive: avá carë 'don't do it' (WJ/371): (cf Latin nolo: Noite facere 'Don't do it'; and Welsh peidio: peidiwich â gadael iddo fynd 'Don't let him go')

Optative

The subjunctive is frequently used for wishes and fears:

• Dio vi benedica 'May God bless you'

The more correct term applicable to Quenya would be desirative and timitive. We have examples of two constructions:

• nai initially: nai elye hiruva
• na before the verb: aranielya na tuluva

The distinction then can be reminiscent of cé being used as an epistemic particle before the verb, or conjunction if initially.

Note that the use of nai as a desirative marker was already present in Early Qenya (PE14/59), where nai was also the weak marker of epistemic possibility. In this sense the Early Qenya was very similar to the subjunctive use in European languages in this context.

Purposive

Clauses that express purpose are marked with a conjunction plus the subjunctive in Latin and Classical Greek, and similarly in Spanish and Italian:

• ti scrivo affinché tu capisca la situazione

We have one purposive sentence in Quenya:

• mennai Orome tanna lende i erenekkoitanie “until Orome came hither that he might awake them” (VT27/7)

which potentially can use (defunct) subjunctive.

Unreality

In a large number of languages a clear distinction can be made between real and unreal conditions. In some languages this is marked with the tense alone, in others by a combination of tense and mood. Similarly to the discussion on epistemic and deontic modality, the 'modal-past' weakens the supposition, stating the condition less likely to occur.

Conditions that predict, in terms of cause and effect, the occurence of one event on condition of another, always require a modal verb in apodosis (both real and unreal):

• If John comes, Bill can leave (real)
• If John came, Bill would leave (unlikely)
• If John had come, Bill might have left (unreal, past)

Non-predictive conditionals such as If John came, Mary left, which merely indicate that if the protasis is true, so is the apodosis, without necessarily implying that there is a cause and effect, have no restrictions on the tense and modality of such sentences.

In Quenya

PE22/120 system is a verbatim carry-over from Latin system:

• qe e·kestan, ni·tuluva; if AOR, (en) FT (predictive real)
• qe e·kestuvan, ni·tuluva; if FT, (en) FT (predictive real, specific)
• aiqe e·kestuvan, (en) ni·tuluva; if MOD FT; (en) FT (predictive unlikely)
• qe e·kárie i kirya aldaryas, ni·kauva kiryasta menelyas; if PFT, (en) FT (predictive real, future reference)
• qe e·káriéva i kirya, ni·kauva kiryasta menelyas; if FT-PFT, (en) FT (predictive real, specific, future reference)
• qe (ai) e·tule, (san) inye tule yú; if (MOD) AOR, (san) AOR (non-predictive, present)
• qe (ai) e·tulle, (san) inye tulle yú; if (MOD) PT, (san) PT (non-predictive, past)
• íqa ette tule, (san) inye tule; when(ever) AOR, (san) AOR (non-predictive, present)
• qe/illume e·kestanen/kestanelyanen, ni·tulle; if/when PT/IMP, PT (non-predictive, past)
• ai(qe) e·kestanen, en(ai) ni·túlie; MOD-if (if) PT, en (MOD) PT (predictive unreal, ?past)
• ai(qe) e·kestanen ela, en ni·túlie; MOD-if (if) PT NEG, en PT (predictive unreal, ?past)
• auve e·kestanen, au ni·túlie; MOD-UR-if PT, MOD-UR PT (predictive unreal, past)
• aiqe ni·káraza (nila) san ette kára(za) yú; MOD-if PR (NEG), san PR (predictive unreal, present)
• auve e·kestanen (ela)! MOD-UR-if PT (NEG) (wish unreal)

Compare Latin schema:

Condition	Example	PROTASIS	APODOSIS
SIMPLE CONDITION	If he says this, he makes a mistake	Present Indicative	Present Indicative
PRESENT GENERAL CONDITION	Every time he says this, he makes a mistake	Present Indicative	Present Indicative
PAST PARTICULAR CONDITION	If he (has) said this, he (has) made a mistake	Imperfect Indicative, Present Perfect Indicative	Imperfect Indicative, Present Perfect Indicative
PAST GENERAL CONDITION	Whenever he said this, he made a mistake	Imperfect Indicative, Present Perfect Indicative	Imperfect Indicative
FUTURE-MOST-VIVID CONDITION	If I shall have said this, I shall have made a mistake	Future Perfect Indicative	Future Perfect Indicative
FUTURE CONDITION (FUTURE-MORE-VIVID)	If he says (will say) this, he will make a mistake	Future Indicative	Future Indicative
FUTURE-LESS-VIVID CONDITION ("ideal")	If he were to (should) say this, he would make a mistake	Present Subjunctive	Present Subjunctive
PRESENT CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITION		Imperfect Subjunctive	Imperfect Subjunctive
PAST CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITION	If he had said this, he would have made a mistake	Past Perfect Subjunctive	Past Perfect Subjunctive

with Quenya:

Condition	Example	PROTASIS	APODOSIS
SIMPLE CONDITION	If he says this, he makes a mistake	qe (ai) + Aorist	san + Aorist
PRESENT GENERAL CONDITION	Every time he says this, he makes a mistake	íqa + Aorist	san + Aorist
PAST PARTICULAR CONDITION	If he (has) said this, he (has) made a mistake	qe + Past	Past
PAST GENERAL CONDITION	Whenever he said this, he made a mistake	illume + Imperfect, Past	Past
FUTURE-MOST-VIVID CONDITION	If I shall have said this, I shall have made a mistake	qe + Future Perfect	Future
FUTURE CONDITION (FUTURE-MORE-VIVID)	If he says (will say) this, he will make a mistake	qe + Perfect	Future
FUTURE-LESS-VIVID CONDITION	If he were to (should) say this, he would make a mistake	aiqe + Future	en + Future
PRESENT CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITION		aiqe + Present	san + Present
PAST CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITION	If he had said this, he would have made a mistake	ai(qe) + Past (NEG); auve + Past	en(ai) + Past; au + Past

The difference between aiqe + Past, enai + Past vs auve + Past, au + Past might be as in:

• potevo farlo se mi aiutavano
• avrei potuto farlo se fossi stato più vecchio

with the 1st, there is an implication that I had the ability and merely needed help to fulfill it, but with the second it is clear that I did not have the ability, but would have had it if (impossibly) I had been older.

PE22/138 had differences (que > quí > que > íte in pencil):

• íte kestallen, tuluvanye; if AOR, FT (predictive real)
• íte kestuvallen, tuluvanye; if FT, FT (predictive improbable)
• aite kestuvallen, tuluvanye; MOD-if FT, FT (predictive improbable)
• (ai)te kestanellen, (ai) tullenye; (MOD)-if PT, (MOD) PT (predictive unreal past; discarded)
• quílas túleste, san inye túle; if-NEG PT, san PT (predictive unreal past)
• au tuluvanye; MOD-UR FT (wish unreal future; discarded)
• au túlielde (las); MOD-UR PFT (NEG) (wish unreal past)

PE22/158 was discarded:

• quí(ta) la tuldes, náne márie; if-MOD-UR ?NEG PT, PT (predictive unreal past)