The .ccg file for this grammar fragment of Elvish can be found here:

:openccg:grammars:elvish.ccg.txt.

To use it, just remover the .txt extension from the end of the filename, making it elvish.ccg

Elvish (Quenya) is one of the numerous languages invented by JRR Tolkien. As it is an invented language, it is not plagued with a number of the idiosyncrasies that nearly all natural languages are prone to. However, despite the great amount of literature that Tolkien has left behind concerning his created languages, there are many unexplained linguistic phenomena that those in the “Elvish Community” must collectively decide upon. Some may accept these additions… some others -the purists- may not.

The real problem with Elvish is the limited lexicon. Many words that we would deem “common” do not find their way into Elvish. For example, when would an elf need to say “I drove my truck to the Black Gates of Mordor”

The semantics of verbs assign nominative case to the subjects, accusative to objects, and dative to recipients. This necessity is not reflected by this grammar, but will be evident once it is expanded to include pronouns.

There is one semantic distinction that is not represented in the actually Elvish language, but reflects the viewpoint of elves: orcs are given the creature class in the semantic ontology. Orcs are not quite people, as they are distorted and evil forms of elves, but nor are the animals. Thus the in-between class.

• The basic word order of Elvish is very close to that of English: Subject Verb (Recipient) Object.

• The definite article comes before any (Adj) Noun combination; there is no agreement on the article. There is no indefinite article: instead the omission of the definite article makes a noun phrase indefinite. Because of this, bare nouns 'n' needed to be able to type change to 'np' thus the rule typechange: n<2> ⇒ np<2> was introduced.

• Adjectives must agree in number with the nouns that they modify.

• Tense is represented by a number of suffixes that append to the root verb. In this grammar, I deal with the following tenses: present, past and future. There are further morphemes for complex tense, not discussed here.

• The verb and subject must agree in number. The singular is simply the stem. There are a number of different classes of verbs (a-verbs, u-verbs) that take different plural markers. In this grammar, I deal mainly with a-verbs.

• Elvish has a number of number morphemes such as dual to signify a pair of something; however, these are not represented in this grammar.

• Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify, based off a systematic word-final sound change.
  • If the singular adjective ends with ”-e” then “e” becomes “i”
  • If the singular adjective ends with ”-ea” then “e” becomes “ie”
  • If the singular adjective ends with ”-a” then “e” becomes “e”

This grammar can parse intransitive, transitive and ditransitive sentences, as well as allowing for complement clauses and subject/object relativization.

It also tests for the agreement and morphological patterns as is addressed above.

The following sentences are correctly deemed grammatical:

• i firini orcor kaimer:the dead orcs slept
• i tulca elda harwuva orcor: the strong elf will wound the orcs
• Legolas one elda i laurea megil: Legolas gives an elf the golden sword
• i orco ya kaime cene Legolas: The orc that slept saw Legolas
• i orcor ya kaimer cener Legolas: The orcs the slept(pl) saw(pl) Legolas
• i orco ya cene Legolas kaime: The orc that saw Legolas slept
• i orco ya Legolas cene kaime: The orc that Legolas saw slept
• i orco ya Legolas one i elda kaime: The orc that Legolas gave the elf slept
• i eldar equeuvar sa Legolas kaime:The elves will say that Legolas slept
• tulca elda ya Legolas cene equee sa i eldar harwer i mori orcor: A strong elf that Legolas saw said that the elves wounded the black orcs

The following sentences are correctly deemed ungrammatical:

• i more eldar kaimar: the black(sg) elves(pl) sleep
• Legolas kaime megil: Legolas slept the sword
• orco ya Legolas cenuva elda kaime: a orc that Legolas will see a elf slept
• elda harwuva sa Legolas kaime: a elf will wound that Legolas sleeps
• megil ona elda orcor: a sword gives an elf orcs