The dative, or indirect object, can be marked in two ways in Sindarin. First, it can be marked by word order alone, with the indirect object following the direct object:
Like English, the direct object of a phrase generally follows the verb in Sindarin. Unlike English, the direct object undergoes soft mutation to mark it as an object, a process I refer to as (grammatical) lenition. Examples include:
Like Quenya, Sindarin once had a dual inflection, used for pairs of objects, but in Sindarin this dual has fallen out of use:
Sindarin has a second plural form formed with suffixes like -ath, -hoth or -rim. Compare:
Koranari *enquean-enquendóra yá haura autas nahtane ilye kelvaron yo laimaron*nelkasta, imbi exe ilye *aikalóki i lá poller vile. Aikalókion umbar ekésie lier i lúmello íre túver minye axontar nu i kemen. Ilye nóri nyarir nyarnar pá haure angulóki, epetai inte ar atani tankave enger uo imya lúmes, hya yáre atani yúyo túver aikalókion axor ar kárer nyarnar pá te.
In addition to the normal plural patterns from the entry on plural nouns, Sindarin has a number of less common plural patterns resulting from more obscure sound changes.
This post skips another small bridge entry on nouns, which is why it jumps to part 19.
Like English, Sindarin has a definite article i “the”, but unlike English it has no indefinite article “a, an”. In Sindarin, an indefinite item is specified by the bare noun: “the man” = i adan but “a man” = adan. The definite article is effectively a proclitic, closely associated with the following word, and as a result causes soft mutation.
Sindarin has a number vowel mutations that serve various grammatical functions. The best known is i-affection, which plays a major role in Sindarin plural nouns and adjectives, but is a factor in the conjugation of the Sindarin present tense as well. I divide i-affection into 3 different “flavors” of changes: internal i-affection, final i-affection and final i-intrusion.
I’m posting this introductory entry out of order, because I want to write up the entries on the individual consonant mutations before writing an overview.
Sindarin has a number of consonant mutations with various effects. Tolkien said:
