Eldamo : Sindarin : pen-

S. pen- v. “to have not, *to lack” (Category: Poor)

S. pen-, v. “to have not, *to lack” (Category: Poor): ᴱN. um- “privative prefix; un-, -less, without”

A verb in Definitive Linguistic Notes (DLN) from 1959 used as the negative of sav- “have” based on the root √PEN (PE17/146). Thus a better meaning might be “*to lack”. This verb was also mentioned in discussion of negation from around this time, along with the phrase penim vast “we have no bread” (PE17/144). In this note Tolkien stated that Sindarin did not use its negative particle ū- for the sense “without”, instead using preposition/prefixal pen instead, as in Iarwain Ben-adar “Oldest and Fatherless” (LotR/265; PE17/34, 144).

References ✧ PE17/144, 171, 173

Glosses

“-less” ✧ PE17/171 (pen-)
“have not” ✧ PE17/144

Variations

pen- ✧ PE17/144; PE17/173; PE17/171 (pen-)

pen- used as a negative of verb sevin ✧ PE17/173
pen- “have not” used for “without” instead of ū- ✧ PE17/144

Inflections

penim	present 1st-pl-exclusive	“we have no ...”	✧ PE17/144
ben	soft-mutation; p-mutation		✧ PE17/144: mut[ated]

Element In

S. penim vast “we have no bread” ✧ PE17/144
S. pen¹ “without, lacking, -less” ✧ PE17/144

Cognates

Q. pen- “not to have” ✧ PE17/173

Derivations

< √PEN “lack, be without, have not” ✧ PE17/144 (PENE); PE17/171 (PEN); PE17/173

Phonetic Developments

√PEN > pen-

[pen-]

✧ PE17/173