Goldogrin Pronouns

1st person (singular):

• im — Nom. (probably emphatic) in im len ‘I have or am come’ s.v. len adj. ‘come, arrived’ (PE11:53).
• ni· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97).
• nin· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a vowel in en nin·ista mai ‘I am well aware of that’ and nin·ista feg ‘I feel ill’ s.v. ista- ‘know, am aware, perceive, feel’ (PE11:52).
• nin — Dative *‘to me, for me’ in a·laithra nin ‘I forget it’ (lit. *‘it is lost to me’) s.v. laitha- or laithra, the latter form espec. with intr. sense ‘to be lost’ (PE11:52); o·gwath lemp nin ‘he beckons’ (lit. *‘he shakes a crooked finger for me’), originally s.v. lemp⁽¹⁾ ‘a crooked finger’ (PE11:53); and on iltathi nin pieg *‘he stuck me with a pin’ (lit. *‘he stuck in a pin to me’) s.v. ilta- ‘to stick in, prod, prick’, “with dative of person or thing pricked” (PE11:51). The impersonal phrase luista nin ‘I am thirsty’ (PE11:55) might lit. be *‘it is parched to me’, with dative nin; but luista ‘to parch, dry up’ is cited in GL as a transitive verb, so it is possible that in this phrase nin serves as a direct object, i.e. *‘it parches me, it dries me up’.

1st person (plural):

• um⁽¹⁾, umin ‘we’ (PE11:74) — Nom. (probably emphatic), also in um lenin *‘we have come’ s.v. len (PE11:53). With the use of the plural marker -in in umin (superfluous because um ‘we’ by itself is already plural), compare othin s.v. oth ‘ye’.
• unc⁽¹⁾ reflexive ‘ourselves’ (PE11:74).
• umeg (PE11:74) — No gloss is given, but the fact that this word was added in pencil directly below reflexive unc⁽¹⁾ ‘ourselves’ suggests that it is an alternative reflexive form. If so, then -eg in umeg is presumably cognate with the -c in unc. See also below s.v. ost⁽³⁾ ‘yourselves’.
• me· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97).
• mir⁽²⁾ dat. ‘to us’ (PE11:57).

2nd person (singular):

* fi- “root of 2nd person sing. pronoun” (PE11:35).

• fi· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97).
• fintha ‘thine’ (PE11:35).
• fin ‘for you’ — Dative, in u lâ fin sî ‘no room for you here’ s.v. lâ ‘space, room, place’ (PE11:52).

NOTE: The 2nd person root *fi- and derivative fintha ‘thine’ were struck out, though nothing was written elsewhere in GL to replace them. That dative fin was allowed to stand was probably an oversight, since it appears s.v. lâ rather than grouped with *fi- and fintha.

• thas, thath ‘thy’ (PE11:13) — These forms are from the Gnomish Grammar, and so predate the Gnomish Lexicon entries for the 2nd person sing. given above.

2nd person (plural):

• gwe- ‘ye, you’ pl. only (PE11:44) — The citation of this form in GL is probably intended as the root from which gweth, gwethra, gwir are derived; but compare nom. prefix gwe· below.
• gweth, gwethra, gwir etc. (PE11:44) — These three forms are given in GL immediately below gwe- (see above), and appear to be nom. gweth *‘ye, you’, possessive or genitive gwethra *‘your’, and dative gwir *‘for you’.
• gwe· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97).

• oth ‘ye’, also informal. othin. † (os, before t, c, b, p, etc.) (PE11:63) — The use of the plural marker -in in poetic othin is apparently superfluous, since oth by itself is plural ‘ye’; compare um⁽¹⁾ ‘we’, with alternative form umin.
• ost⁽³⁾ pronoun, reflexive ‘yourselves’ (PE11:63) — With the reflexive suffix -t in this form (and reflexive -c in unc⁽¹⁾ ‘ourselves’), compare “Q -ko (-to) reflexive suffix” queried in QL as a possible derivative of KOHO ‘undergo, endure’ (PE12:47).

3rd person (singular):

Masculine:

• on ‘he’ emphatic (PE11:62) — Also in on iltathi nin pieg *‘he stuck me with a pin’ (lit. *‘he stuck in a pin to me’) s.v. ilta- ‘to stick in, prod, prick’ (PE11:51); and cited without translation s.v. len ‘come, arrived’ (PE11:53).
• o· — Nom. prefix seen in o·gwath lemp nin ‘he beckons’ (lit. *‘he shakes a crooked finger at me’), originally s.v. lemp⁽¹⁾ ‘a crooked finger’ (PE11:53). Tolkien also occasionally translates verbs without an explicit pronominal marker as having the subject “he”, e.g. lemp ‘he beckons’ (ibid.) and ôni cailthi ‘he kissed’ (PE11:11).
• ontha ‘his’ (PE11:62) — Also in nôbi ·i·mab ’len suila ontha *‘He took the slender hand of his daughter’ (PE11:11).

Feminine:

• ir (PE11:51) — This entry appears in GL without a gloss and might refer to the dative article ir (see PE11:9 and PE11:50 s.v. i·) rather than to an independent pronoun ‘she’. But note ir- in possessive irtha ‘her’, and -ir as a feminine ending in dir fem. of don ‘who’ (PE11:30), mabir ‘mother’ (PE11:57), etc.
• irtha ‘her’ — In ôni cailthi a·mabwid glen irtha ‘he pressed a kiss upon her slender hands’ (PE11:11). This form might also be read as istha (ibid., note 12).

Common/Neuter:

• an ‘person, “-body”; “one”, anyone, someone, “they”’ (PE11:19) — The entry for this pronoun also notes that “negative is umon, or unweg”, with umon subsequently struck out.
• a· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97) and the phrase a·laithra nin ‘I forget it’ s.v. laitha-, laithra. This same prefix is used for the 3rd person plural.
• *-ith — In the GL entry “glóna- to dawn. glonaith = it dawns. (she, i.e. Aur)” (PE11:40), the suffix -ith apparently means ‘it’, and might be cognate with ith ‘anything’ (q.v.). The parenthetical note following “it dawns” could merely indicate that ‘it’ here refers to Aur ‘Sun’, which is a feminine form (see PE11:20). However, the note might also indicate that the literal meaning of glonaith is *‘she dawns’. In either case, this the only example of a suffixed subject pronoun in a Goldogrin verb. Compare the feminine suffix -ith seen in amaith, poetic form of amil ‘mother’ (PE11:19); and amraith ‘nomad, wanderer’, fem. agentive (masc. amrog) < amra- ‘go up and down — live in the mountains, roam, wander’ (ibid.)

3rd person (plural):

Masculine:

• onin (PE11:62) — Plural form of emphatic on ‘he’.

Common/Neuter:

• atha, ath etc. pl. 3rd person pronoun (PE11:20).
• a· — Nom. prefix with verbs beginning in a consonant; see “Goldogrin Pronominal Prefixes” (PE13:97). This same prefix is used for the 3rd person singular.

© 2003 Patrick H. Wynne patrickwynne@pa2rick.com
Last modified Dec. 5, 2003