Ad. triconsonantal-verb grammar.
Tolkien states that “the verb form in Adunaic is usually triconsonantal” (SD/416) and there are quite a few examples of triconsonantal verbs, especially compared to the Elvish languages (which have very few verbs derived from triconsonantal roots). There are quite a few attested inflections for these verbs. Based on these forms, my best guess for the conjugations of triconsonantal verbs is as follows:
| Tense | Formation | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| aorist | Eliminate the second vowel and add an -a to the verb stem | kalab- → kalba (VT24/12) |
| continuative-present | Change the second vowel to u, add an -i to the verb stem | kalab- → kalubi (SD/251) |
| past | Double the middle consonant, add an -a to the verb stem | kalab- → kallaba (SD/247, 429) |
| continuative-past | ? | ? |
There isn’t enough information on the continuative past to guess how it might be formed. See the entries for the individual verb tenses for further discussion.
| Examples (triconsonantal-verb) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dubud- | “to fall (under influence/cover of)” | ||||||||
| kalab- | “to fall (down)” | ||||||||
| *nitir- | “to kindle” | ||||||||
| *phazag- | “?to rule, conquer” | ||||||||
| phurus- | “to gush, flow” | ||||||||
| rahat- | “to break, rend” | ||||||||
| #saphad- | “to understand” | ||||||||
| #tabad- | “to touch” | ||||||||
| *zabath- | “to (be) humble” | ||||||||
Reference ✧ SD/439 ✧ for example: kalab “fall down”
Element In