THEIR

may be expressed as the ending -lta (also -ltya) added to nouns (VT49:16), e.g. *aldalta or *aldaltya = “their tree”. – In some sources, Tolkien instead gives the ending as -nta (nassentar pl. “their true-being[s]”, PE17:174) or -ntya (called an “archaic” form in VT49:17), just as he hesitated between -ltë and -ntë as the ending for “they” (VT49:17; see THEY). In “colloquial Quenya”, the ending -rya could also be used for the plural pronoun “their” (símaryassen “in their imaginations”, VT49:16), because it was felt to contain the plural ending -r, but in “correct” written Quenya -rya was rather the ending for “his, her, its” (VT49:17). – According to VT49:17, the vowel -i- is inserted before the ending -lta/-ltya or -nta/-ntya when it is added to a stem ending in a consonant (but the evidence concerning connecting vowels before pronominal endings is rather diverse). – All these words for “their” are plural; the ending for dual “their” (describing something owned by two persons) is given in VT49:16 as -sta, but this clashes with a similar ending belonging to the second rather than the third person. The corresponding ending for “they” was (according to VT49:51) changed from -stë to -ttë, seemingly implying *-tta as the ending for dual “their”: hence e.g. *aldatta, “the tree of the two of them”. – No independent words for “their, theirs” are attested. Analogy may point to *tenya (plural) and *túnya or *tunya (dual), based on (attested) ten and (unattested) *tún as the dative forms of the pronouns te, tú “they” (plural and dual, repectively). Compare such attested forms as ninya “my” and menya “our” vs. the dative pronouns nin “for me”, men “for us”.