✶Ad. consonant-doubling grammar.

✶Ad. consonant-doubling grammar.

When deriving a primitive word from a root, one of its isolated consonants could be modified by doubling it. This was usually the medial or final consonant, but sometimes the initial consonant could be doubled (SD/417), though (most likely) only when there was a prefixed vowel. At most one consonant in a word could be doubled (SD/417).

Where this consonant-doubling was applied finally, the result was a consonant cluster. Since clusters could not appear as final-consonants in Primitive Adûnaic, an additional vowel was suffixed to the word: ✶Ad. √KALAB > ✶kalabbi, ✶kalabbu (SD/425). Where the other two vowels were characteristic-vowels, this added vowel must necessarily be non-characteristic. Otherwise, the suffixed vowel could be characteristic or non-characteristic: ✶kalib → ✶kalibba, ✶kalibbi, ✶kalibbu (SD/425).

According to Tolkien, consonant doubling was originally in competition with nasal-infixion for various grammatical functions in Primitive Adûnaic (SD/417). However, later phonetic developments meant that many infixed nasals became voiceless stops, making it unlikely that nasal-infixion was used grammatically by the time of Classical Adûnaic. Consonant doubling was used in the formation of the Classical Adûnaic past tense, though.

Examples (consonant-doubling)
GIMMIL ← GIMIL (full-form) ✧ SD/425
GIMILLA ← GIMIL (full-form) ✧ SD/425
Kullub ← KULUB (full-form) ✧ SD/425
Kullab ← KULAB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
Kullib ← KULIB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulubba ← KULUB (full-form) ✧ SD/425
kulubbi ← KULUB (full-form) ✧ SD/425
kulabbu ← KULAB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulabba ← KULAB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulabbi ← KULAB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulibbu ← KULIB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulibbi ← KULIB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425
kulibba ← KULIB (subordinate-vowel-variation) ✧ SD/425

Reference ✧ SD/417

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