S. #carth n. “deed” (Category: Action)
Sindarin noun for a “deed”, attested only in its lenited plural form gerth within the word úgarth “trespass” (VT44/28), which probably more literally means “*misdeed”. This word is not completely compatible with its Quenya cognate Q. carda “deed” from primitive ✶kardā, which in Sindarin should produce *cardh. Perhaps the Sindarin word had a slightly different primitive form *✶kartā. The expect form cardh might appear as an element in the variant form athragardh of S. athragared “interaction”.
Conceptual Development: Perhaps the earliest precursor of this word is G. carm “act, deed, exploit” in the Gnomish Lexicon from the 1910s (GL/25; PE13/111), cognate of contemporaneous ᴱQ. karma “shape, fashion; act, deed” (QL/45). In the Early Noldorin word lists from the 1920s, this word was revised to ᴱN. carbh “deed” (PE13/140), reflecting Tolkien’s changing conception of the phonetic development of final -m in Noldorin. In The Etymologies from the 1930s, the word appeared as N. carth or carð “deed” (cardh), but these forms were rejected and replaced by N. car(ð) “building” (Ety/KAR).
See also S. #carn “deed”.
References ✧ VT44/28
Inflections
#gerth | soft-mutation plural; c-mutation | ✧ VT44/28 |
Element In
Cognates
N. carth n. “deed”
References ✧ Ety/KAR
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
ᴹ√KAR > carth | [karta] > [kartʰa] > [karθa] > [karθ] | ✧ Ety/KAR |
ᴱN. carbh n. “deed” (Category: Action)
References ✧ PE13/140
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Inflections
cerbh | plural | ✧ PE13/140 |