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The twenty-third line of the Markirya poem (MC/222). The first word is man “who” followed the future tense of cen- “to see”. The object of the phrase is the subordinate clause lumbor ahosta “clouds gather”, with the plural of the noun lumbo “[dark] cloud” followed by the infinitive of the verb hosta- “to gather”. The prefix a- in ahosta marks the infinitive as an object of the primary verb “see” rather than its subject.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

man cen-uva lumbo-r a-hosta = “*who see-(future) cloud-(plural) (object)-gather”

Conceptual Development: In the first draft, Tolkien used na- for the object-prefix, which he retained initially in the second draft before changing it to a- (MC/222).

[< Previous Phrase] Oilima Markirya [Next Phrase >]

The twenty second line of the Oilima Markirya poem (MC/214). The first word is man “who” followed by the future tense of the verb kili- “to see”. The last two words serve as the object of the phrase: the plural of the noun lóme “cloud” with the “bare stem” infinitive form of the verb sanga-¹ “to gather”, as suggested by Gilson, Welden, and Hostetter (PE16/84, notes on line #10 and #11), apparently functioning as either an active-participle or a verbal object.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

man kil-uva lóm-i sanga-ne = “*who see-(future) cloud-(plural) gather-ing”