ᴱQ. kaivon nyúken i·sapsanta silmerána númetár “*the gleaming-moon goes down like a corpse into the grave”
The seventh phrase (lines 13-14) of the intermediate version of the Oilima Markirya poem (PE16/77). The first word is the nominative form of the noun kaivo “corpse” followed by an undecipherable word nyúken and the definite allative form of the noun of sapsa “grave”: i·sapsanta “into the grave”.
The second half of the phrase seems to have the subject silmerána “gleaming moon” of the verb númetár, the present 3rd-singular masculine form of númeta- “go down”. Since silmerána is not in the nominative form, while kaivon “corpse” is, it could be that “corpse” is the formal subject, and silmerána is simply poetically descriptive.
The phrase loosely corresponds to the thirteenth and fourteenth lines of the English translations of the poem LA2a-LA2b (PE16/68-9): “(in) the moon falling, a corpse into a grave”, but seems to be closer to the lines in the first English translation LA1a (PE16/67): “the moon went down like a corpse into a grave”.
Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:
kaivo-n nyúken i·sapsa-nta silme-rána númetá-r = “*corpse-(nominative) [?] the·grave-into gleaming-moon go-down-he”
Conceptual Development: The first word was initially written without the nominative inflection as kaivo (PE16/79).
Reference ✧ PE16/77 ✧ {kaivo >>} kaivon nyuuken i·sapsanta silmeraana nuumetaar
Elements
| kaivo | “corpse” | nominative | ✧ PE16/77 (kaivon) |
| nyúken | “[unglossed]” | ✧ PE16/77 (nyuuken) | |
| i¹ | “the” | ✧ PE16/77 | |
| sapsa | “pit, grave” | allative | ✧ PE16/77 (sapsanta) |
| silmerána | “gleaming moon, silver moon” | ✧ PE16/77 (silmeraana) | |
| númeta- | “to get low (of the Sun), go down in the west” | present 3rd-sg-masc | ✧ PE16/77 (nuumetaar) |
Element In