Sundocarme

Sundocarmë or "Base-structure" is the title of a section in Tolkien's Tengwesta Qenderinwa (Quendian Grammar) dealing with the three main shapes of Elvish etymological roots and their modifications. All Elvish and Mannish words (and in a sense, also Khuzdul) derive from a base root or sundo.

Roots are not actual words, but bases that contain the general meanings, and from which, during the process of evolution and times, real words were derived through affixes, suffixes, or modifications.

In the very first phase of the Primitive Quendian, roots were probably used as actual words; in that period the Elves could speak only through uninflected words, without any differentiation between parts of the speech (Tradition says that the very first word ever said by an Elf was el-e!, a primitive exclamation "look!", referring to a star).

The consonantal frame of the root was called canta and the central radical vowel called sundóma.