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Q. ola- v. (a-verb) “to become” (Category: Become)

Q. ola-, v. (a-verb) “to become; [ᴹQ.] to grow (up)” (Category: Become)

An a-verb ola- appeared with the gloss “grow” in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) of 1948 (PE22/113, 125), replacing ᴹQ. ala- of the same meaning (PE22/113 note #80). In the same document Tolkien coined a distinct basic verb ᴹQ. ol- “become” (PE22/113). Various other inflections throughout the document belonged to one or the other of these verbs. There are glosses indicating that Tolkien was not entirely certain of the distribution of meaning between the two, however. For example, he had ᴹQ. olinwa (not *olanwa) with the sense “fully grown, adult” (PE22/116). Also ola- was given both a weak and strong past tense: olane “grew, were growing” and óle “grew, finished growing, grew up, became” (PE22/116), as opposed to the past tense of ol- which was olle “became” (PE22/103).

In QVS the perfect form of both verbs were the same: (ol)ólie “it has grown up, it has reached its prime, become” (PE22/103, 116), and such similarity of inflected forms may have been the basis for the confusion of meanings. The perfect form olōlie “has become” reappeared in Common Eldarin: Verb Structure of the early 1950s (PE22/133), and again could be from either verb. However, in that document Tolkien had a primitive a-verb ᴹ✶olā- “become, come into being, turn into (another state)”, appearing along with a restored ᴹ✶galā-, which had the more limited sense “grow (of plants)” (PE22/134).

Q. ala- “grow” continued to appear in Tolkien’s latter writings, but its root was usually connected more specifically to the growth of plants (PE17/25, 135, 153). Meanwhile, in notes from around 1959, Tolkien had several words indicating that √OL continued to be the basis of growth-words for people: Q. olmen “growth-year”, Q. olmië “growth” and Q. quantolië “maturity” (NM/84, 119-120).

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use just the a-verb ola- with the sense “grow (up); grow into or become”. It can be used intransitively with people and animals with the sense “grow (up)” as in i Elda olane lintavë “the Elf grew quickly”; for plants, however, the word for “grow” would be ala- (see that entry for discussion). Used transitively, the verb ola- has the sense “grow into or become”, as in i Elda olólie nisse “the Elf has become/grown into a woman”. In this sense it can also apply to inanimate or abstract things: i taure olane ráva yonde “the forest became a lawless region”. Thus ola- refers to the process of growing, maturing and transitioning. If it has a direct object, that object is the thing one grows into or becomes.

Note that this verb is similar in form to óla- “to dream”, but confusion is unlikely since “dream” is an impersonal verb, where the putative subject would be in the dative: óla i Eldan “the Elf dreams, (lit.) dreams [come] to the Elf”, as opposed to i Elda ola lumba “the Elf becomes/grows weary”.

References ✧ PE22/133

Related

Inflections

olōlie perfect “has become” ✧ PE22/133

Cognates

Derivations


ᴹQ. ol- v. (basic-verb) “to become” (Category: Become)

See Q. ola- for discussion.

References ✧ PE22/99-100, 103, 113, 116

Glosses

Variations

Inflections

oli- aorist   ✧ PE22/113
ŏlē̆- aorist “become” ✧ PE22/99
ŏlĕ aorist   ✧ PE22/99
olle past “became” ✧ PE22/103
olólie perfect   ✧ PE22/103
ólie perfect   ✧ PE22/103
olinwa perfective-participle “fully grown, adult” ✧ PE22/116
ōla present “is becoming” ✧ PE22/100

Element In

Cognates

Derivations

Phonetic Developments

ᴹ√OL > olle [onle] > [olle] ✧ PE22/103

ᴹQ. ola- v. (a-verb) “to grow [up]” (Category: to Grow)

See Q. ola- for discussion.

References ✧ PE22/107, 109, 111, 113, 116, 124-125

Glosses

Variations

Related

Inflections

olea active-participle “growing, living (of plants etc.)” ✧ PE22/111
olárea active-participle “growing” ✧ PE22/116
olar aorist plural “grow” ✧ PE22/116
ólar aorist plural “grow” ✧ PE22/124
olaryane consuetudinal-past   ✧ PE22/116: was not much used [for this class of verbs]
oláva future   ✧ PE22/109
oláva future “will go on growing, will grow” ✧ PE22/116
oláre gerund “growing” ✧ PE22/116
olarya imperfect-participle “growing” ✧ PE22/107; PE22/107
olane past “grew, were growing” ✧ PE22/116
óle past; strong-past “grew, finished growing, grew up, became” ✧ PE22/116
(ol)ólie perfect “it has grown up, it has reached its prime, become” ✧ PE22/116
ōla- present “is growing” ✧ PE22/116: strong present
ólar present plural “is ... growing” ✧ PE22/116

Element In

Derivations

Phonetic Developments

ᴹ✶golā > ola- [gola-] > [ɣola-] > [ola-] ✧ PE22/113