On 1/21/02 6:05 PM, "iiipitaka" <dsalo@...> wrote:

> I realize that Carl Hostetter asserts that everything from Gnomish to Sindarin
> is one language,

I do? Where did I ever make this assertion? I do assert that "Gnomish _is_
Sindarin", in the same sense that Christopher Tolkien meant when he first
made that statement, and as illuminated in Chris Gilson's article of the
same title in _Tolkien's Legendarium_. But that is not the same as saying
that Gnomish and Noldorin have absolutely no distinguishing characteristics,
as you seem to be implying I believe. Again, please provide evidence for
this assertion.

> The sentence that I saw was isolated, not part of any story or narrative.

That is not true, as you would know had you taken the time to take me up on
my offer to look at and discuss the text together, instead of using your
time to press your attack against me and the Estate and then demanding that
I return you to the Metro station.

> There is no reason to for me to suppose that the Tuor and Rķan mentioned are
> the same as the characters in the Silmarillion

And no reason to think they are not. It makes much more sense in any
interpretation for Rian to ask a rhetorical question "What have we done?"
(i.e., as a race, or a people, in the context of a disastrous war), than for
her to make a rather accusatory interrogation of _Tuor'_ actions, even if
you think she is speaking to him as an adult from beyond the grave.

> or that I have to depend upon the details of that story

On what else _could_ you possibly depend for interpretation?

> Tuor and Rķan are just names that are used in this sentence,

That is not true, and it is an absurd assumption to make.

> Now, it is interesting that Carl Hostetter is attempting to refute
> the thesis that -ch is a 2nd person ending by referring to documents
> decades earlier than the sentence in question, but fails to refer to
> documents much closer in date to the Tuor sentence that support the thesis.

I have already explained that I did not quote that footnote from the new
_Parma Eldalamberon_ as part of a refutation (my criticism of David's
apparent reasoning standing on its own, quite apart from any pronominal
evidence , but simply because I knew it would inevitably arise in connection
with the discussion about _-ch_. I don't know which particular document
David is referring to -- pronominal charts being thick on the ground in
Tolkien's papers -- so I can't possibly judge whether his recollection is
correct. But I have already noted that it is possible to find some (at least
apparent) evidence in the ever and rapidly shifting corpus of pronominal
systems to support nearly any desired meaning for most of the pronominal
endings. So the fact that David claims to have seen a chart in which _-ch_
is a 2nd person ending is neither surprising nor particularly relevant to
the interpretation of _-ch_ in the sentence under discussion; indeed, since
charts can be found showing _-ch_ as 2nd sg., and as 1st pl. inclusive
(among other meanings), even among charts apparently contemporary with the
sentence under construction, we can _only_ rely on context to decide which
of these meanings is intended in this sentence. But David prefers to reject
any consideration of context, and even the identity of Tuor and Rian, in
order to preserve his interpretation.

I point out that unlike David I have, and never have had, any investment in
seeing that one or another meaning prevails; my only responsibility is to
present material and explain it in light of all available evidence. I had
examined what _-ch_ most likely means before David's visit, based on all the
contemporary unpublished material I had received from Christopher Tolkien at
that time, including pronominal charts, and on the context of the sentence,
including the further sentences in the dialogue of which it is just a part.
David had his chance to examine all of this too, but rejected it, and now
tries to accuse me of lacking scholarly integrity while making statements
about a document which he himself chose not to examine thoroughly and in its
full context.

_If_ David's interpretation of this sentence proves to be wrong -- and I
think it almost certainly is, and that he should have known this even from
the fragment he has quoted -- the responsibility lies not with me, but with
him.

As for whether David questions my credibility, I could not possibly care
less: since he questions Tolkien's own credibility, I consider myself to be
in excellent company.


|======================================================================|
| Carl F. Hostetter Aelfwine@... http://www.elvish.org |
| |
| ho bios brachys, he de techne makre. |
| Ars longa, vita brevis. |
| The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. |
| "I wish life was not so short," he thought. "Languages take |
| such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." |
|======================================================================|