ᴺQ. [Q.] lé prep. “with, [ᴹQ.] by (means of), ⚠️[ᴱQ.] with (accompaniment)” (Category: Way, Manner)
Derivations
Q. lé² prep. “with” (Category: Way, Manner)
The preposition lé “with” was mentioned in a (rejected) etymology of S. di “with” in Tolkien’s notes on Words, Phrases and Passages from the Lord of the Rings (WPP) from the late 1950s or early 1960s (PE17/94), from the phrase le nallon sí di’nguruthos (LotR/729), usually translated “here overwhelmed in dread of Death, I cry”. In this note, Tolkien eventually decided that S. (n)di actually meant “beneath”, and its Quenya equivalent was Q. nî.
Conceptual Development: Prepositional ᴹQ. le also appeared in the Lament of Atalante from the 1940s, in the phrase ᴹQ. Númeheruvi arda sakkante lenéme Ilúvatáren “the Lords of the West broke the world by [or with] leave of Ilúvatar” (SD/246, 310). Here “with” seems to be used in the instrumental sense “by means of”. The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. le “with (accompaniment)” under the early root ᴱ√LĒ (QL/52). Le was also mentioned in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon as the equivalent of G. li “with (of accompaniment only)”, but also used to mean “and” between nouns GL/54().
Neo-Quenya: I would retain ᴺQ. lé for purposes of Neo-Quenya as a rarely-used instrumental preposition meaning “with, by (means of)”, reconceived as a derivative of √LEÑ “*way, method, manner” (PE17/74).
Reference ✧ PE17/95 ✧ lé “with”
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ✶dē > lē > lé | [dē] > [lē] | ✧ PE17/95 |
ᴹQ. le² prep. “with, by” (Category: Way, Manner)
References ✧ SD/246, 310
Glosses
Element In
ᴱQ. le² prep. “with (accompaniment)” (Category: Together)
References ✧ GL/54; QL/52, 85
Glosses
Variations
Related
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ᴱ√LĒ > le | [le] | ✧ QL/52 |