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The 2nd phrase of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/247). Tolkien did not interpret the name Êruhînim in any version of the text, but elsewhere it is glossed “Children of God (Eru)” (SD/248). Tolkien’s gloss was “‽ fell ‽shadow under/beneath”, with the translation of the last word differing slightly in the typescript (SD/247) and manuscript (VT24/12). In ordinary English the phrase might be “the Children of Eru fell under shadow”.

The subject Êruhînim of the sentence is the subjective plural form of #Êruhin. The verb dubdam seems to be in the aorist form of #dubud- “to fall”, glossed in past tense because it is in a narrative occurring in the past. The verb has the plural marker -m in agreement with the number of the subject. The word dalad “under, beneath” is suffixed to the noun it modifies, as is usual of Adûnaic prepositions.

The previous (second draft) version of this sentence (SD/312) differs only in its use of the verb form dubbudam (past tense) instead of the final version’s form dubdam (aorist). The first draft version used all the same words but differed in its grammar.

[< Previous Phrase] Lament of Akallabêth (first draft) [Next Phrase >]

The first draft of the 2nd phrase of the Lament of Akallabêth (SD/311). It differs from the final version only in grammar. The subject of the sentence seems to be a simple plural of #Êruhin, not in the subjective case. The verb might be inflected with the 3rd-person singular masculine suffix u- “he”, but this contradicts the plurality of the subject. Another explanation is that the verb is in the draft-perfect tense and the initial u- is an augment vowel. Either way, it is difficult to explain why it has the verbal suffix -nim instead of the usual plural suffix -m.

The word dalad “under” comes before the noun rather than as a suffix as is usual of later Adûnaic prepositions. The word it modifies seems to be the draft-dative case of the word ugru “shadow”, indicating that the objects of prepositions could be declined into various cases in the draft grammar.