Q. en adv. and conj. “then soon” (Category: After)
An (archaic) marker of the future in Old Quenya in notes from the early 1950s, in phrases such as OQ. en i matinyë “I shall eat then soon” (PE22/131). It was replaced in modern Quenya by the future suffix -uva (PE22/132).
Conceptual Development: The earliest use of ᴱQ. en was as a demonstrative pronoun meaning “that by you” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the early root ᴱ√E (QL/34). It also had a demonstrative function in the Early Qenya Grammar where it was used to form emphatic demonstratives ᴱQ. enqi, ᴱQ. enke, and ᴱQ. enta (PE14/55). Similar forms appear in the so-called “Entu, Ensi, Enta Declension” (EEED) from the (early?) 1930s, probably also various demonstrative forms (VT36/8).
The Etymologies of the 1930s indicated that ᴹQ. en “there, look yon (yonder)” was a remote demonstrative based on the root ᴹ√EN “over there, yonder” (Ety/EN), which in time pointed to the future as opposed to ᴹ√YA pointing to the past (Ety/YA). In Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 en was added to demonstratives ya and ta to make them more emphatic when referring to space, but in Quenya for time it always referred to the future so that ta, ya referred to the near and remote past but enta, enya referred to the near and remote future (PE23/97). The word en “in that (future) case” was also a marker of the future in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948 (PE22/120). The Old Quenya future marker mentioned above is from Common Eldarin: Verb Structure (EVS2) from the early 1950s (PE22/131).
In Tolkien’s later writings the root √EN is typically used as a prefix meaning “again, go on doing”, but in rough notes from the late 1960s Tolkien hinted that this sense was originally based on an earlier meaning “further, beyond”, perhaps indicating its use a remote and future demonstrative may have survived in Tolkien’s later conception:
en- “again” as [in] enquantuva is prob[ably] [?] “further, beyond” [?in respect of time influenced by ? only in] Q. enta, only with verbs ... (VT41/16 note #5).
Also note that in DRC, it seems en could be used as a conjunction meaning “in that future subsequent or consequent case, then, consequently” (PE23/109).
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would use en as an adverb/conjunction meaning “then, consequently” with an implication of near future: menuvan i ostonna en cenuvan i aran “I will go to the city then I will see the king”. In archaic/poetic speech I would use en to mark the (near) future as an adverb preceding the verb: en i matinye “then soon I [will] eat”.
I would not, however, use en as a remote spatial demonstrative; I would instead use [ᴹQ.] enta “that yonder” as a more emphatic form of ta “that, there”.
References ✧ PE22/131
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Element In
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ᴹQ. en pron. and adv. “there, yonder, far away; look yon(der); that; in that (future) case” (Category: After)
References ✧ Ety/EN, YA; EtyAC/EN; LR/72; PE22/11, 100, 120-122; PE23/97-98, 109; SD/57, 290; VT36/8
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| ᴹ√EN | “yonder, over there” | ✧ Ety/YA |
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| ᴹ√EN > en | [en] | ✧ Ety/EN |
ᴱQ. en pron. and adv. “that by you; thereupon” (Category: Pronoun)
References ✧ PE14/54-55, 59; PE15/32; QL/34
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| ᴱ√E > en | [en] | ✧ QL/34 |