S. pen² pron. “one, somebody, anybody” (Category: Human Being)
A Sindarin pronoun with the sense “one, somebody, anybody” appearing in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60, also used as a suffix in words like orodben “mountaineer” and rochben “rider” (WJ/376), originally “*mountain-person” and “*horse-person”. It was thus more narrow in scope than its Quenya cognate quén “person”. Hints of this word can be found in other late writings, such as in the final element in Morben (PE17/141; EtyAC/MOR), originally “Dark-elf” but later expanded to include any people who are not among the Celbin “*Light folk”, which applied to “peoples in alliance in the War against Morgoth” (WJ/377).
Conceptual Development: In The Etymologies of the 1930s, N. penn meant “Elf” in the compound N. Morbenn “Dark-elf”, though this word was rejected (EtyAC/MOR). The word N. penn, plural i-phinn “the Elves” also appeared in notes on Ælfwine’s spelling from around 1937-8 (PE22/67). This Noldorin form was thus a cognate of ᴹQ. Qende “Elf”, though elsewhere the usual cognate was N. penedh (Ety/KWEN(ED)); see the entry on S. penedh for further discussion. However, the later Sindarin pronoun/suffix “had no special association with Elves” (WJ/376).
References ✧ PE17/141; WJ/362, 376
Glosses
Variations
Inflections
| -ben | soft-mutation; p-mutation | ✧ PE17/141 |
| ben | soft-mutation; p-mutation | ✧ WJ/362: usually mutated |
| ben | soft-mutation; p-mutation | ✧ WJ/376: mutated |
| -ben/-phen | suffix | ✧ WJ/362 |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ✶kwenedē > pen- | [-kwende] > [-pende] > [-pend] > [-penn] > [-pen] | ✧ PE17/141 |
| ✶kwēn > pen | [kwene] > [pene] > [pen] | ✧ WJ/362 |
| √KWEN > pen | [kwene] > [pene] > [pen] | ✧ WJ/376 |
N. penn² n. “Elf” (Category: Elf, Fairy)
References ✧ EtyAC/MOR; PE22/67
Variations
Inflections
| i-phinn | nasal-mutation plural; p-mutation | “the Elves” | ✧ PE22/67 |
| pinn | plural | ✧ PE22/67 | |
| benn | soft-mutation; p-mutation | “Elf” | ✧ EtyAC/MOR |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations