Because we all need linguistic discussions at half past midnight.

[oloriel]

... so ladyelleth and me were talking about Quenya. More precisely, the dual case. (You know, the funny little thing between the singular and the plural case. Old English had it. Modern English doesn't. That's how the cookie crumbles.) So anyway, we were discussing whether the dual was used for any old pair of things or just for things that naturally come in pairs.

ladyelleth: I think I've read somewhere that the dual is only used for natural pairs like ears and eyes and hands.
ladyelleth: Tatschaschlik. The Quenya dual is used for expressing natural pairs. So when talking about the two eyes of one person, in Classical Quenya is used the dual, instead the ordinary plural is used when talking about eyes from different persons.
So that's why the dual is translated not simply by the number two but by "a pair of"
oloriel: Tolkien used it for ships too, though, and those aren't exactly natural couples.
oloriel: And leaves, which rather appear in bunches naturally. And all in all, that "eyes from different persons" thing seems a little far-fetched to me. I mean, how often do I talk about TWO eyes that belong to TWO persons?
oloriel: Ok, if two eye-patched pirates meet up, that might be relevant, but in general I'd assume that x people have x times two eyes, so you'd use the ordinary plural anyway.
ladyelleth: True that.
oloriel: Or the hands thing. Unless Maedhros and Beren meet up for Onehanded Anonymous, I'd think two people would have more than two hands between them anyway, right?
ladyelleth: ... QotD?


Although there were many, many potential QotDs at the party today already.

... I so should be in bed.

Happy birthday again, eliathanis!
The pasta was divine.

Comments

[elfy.livejournal.com]

Apropo, gibt es Tolkien-Bücher, die du noch suchst?

http://pics.livejournal.com/elfy/pic/000fdx21
Hab ich für dich im Forbidden Planet fotografiert.
Wusstest du übrigens, dass die hier ein, äh, Herr der Ringe Musical vorbereiten? Dafür hab ich dir ein Werbeblättchen eingesteckt :)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

O.o Ich will da hiiiiiiin!

Jo, wusste ich... das ist letztes Jahr in Toronto gefloppt, jetzt versuchen sie's in London ;)

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

Which reminds me. Hast du den Plotz-letter irgendwo verfügbar? Ich würde nämlich gern des Meisters eigene Worte zum Thema lesen, und zwar nicht nur zum Dual. Nicht, dass ich dich hier anzweifeln will oder so, aber. ;)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Nee, den Plotz-letter leider nicht, Basic Quenya hab ich mir nämlich noch nicht zugelegt. Davon mal abgesehen zweifelst du auch gar nicht mich an, sondern den Fauskanger, also is das scho recht ;)

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

Der andere über die ATS ist auch nicht wirklich irgendwie relevant für Quenya - der Brief ist also doch nicht nur in einer Ausgabe von Vinyar Tengwar abgedruckt? Nice. ;)

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Navajo has it, too, and it's definately used for things that don't naturally come in pairs.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*nods* So does ye Olde English ;) But then, just because it's used like that in other languages doesn't mean it's used like that in a yet different language. After all, many (if not all) languages have the third person singular - yet some only have one gender, some have two (il, elle, -) and yet others have three (he, she, it/ er, sie, es/ is, ea, id etc)... so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I still believe it's used for two things in general, though. ;)