lucassë

debt, trespass

#lucassë noun "debt, trespass" (VT43:19, attested in the pl. with a pronominal suffix: lucassemmar "our trespasses")

lucassë

noun. *debt, trespass

ar ámen apsenë úcaremmar

and forgive us our trespasses

The seventh line of Átaremma, Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The first word is ar “and”, followed by a combination of the imperative particle á and the (dative) second person plural pronoun men “[for] us”. Next follows apsene, the aorist form of the verb apsen- “forgive”. The final word úcaremmar “our trespasses” is the first person plural exclusive possessive form of úcarë, with the usual plural suffix -r indicating the possessed noun was also plural (“trespasses” as opposed to “trespass”).

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

> ar á-me-n apsenë úcare-mma-r = “✱and (imperative)-us-for forgive trespass-our-(plural)”

Conceptual Development: Earlier versions of the prayer used a different verb avatyar- for “forgive”, in what was probably a suffixed imperative form avatyara (I-IIa) or ávatyara (IIb-IV). In version I-IV, this was followed by the ablative form mello “[from] us” of the pronoun me.

Earlier versions of the prayer used a variety of words for “trespass”: lucassë (I), lucië (IIa-IIb), luhta (III-IV deleted) and rohta (III-IV). Most instances used the same possessive suffix -mma “our” as the final verion of the prayer, but version III used an independent pronoun menya, in its plural form menye to agree with the plural noun “trespasses”.

|  I  |IIa|IIb|III|IV|V|VI| |ar| |avatyara|ávatyara|ámen| |mello|apsene| |lucassemmar|i luciemmar|menye {luhtar >>} rohtar|{luhtammar >>} rohtammar|úcaremmar|

lucië

debt, trespass

#lucië noun "debt, trespass" (VT43:19, attested in the pl. with a pronominal suffix: luciemmar "our trespasses")

lucië

noun. *debt, trespass

luhta

debt, trespass

[#luhta (3) noun "debt, trespass" (VT43:19, attested in the pl. form luhtar, but deleted by Tolkien)]

luhta

noun. *debt, trespass

rohta

debt, trespass

#rohta noun "debt, trespass" (attested in the pl.: rohtar, and with a pronominal suffix: rohtammar "our trespasses") (VT43:19) Variant #ruhta. #Rohtalië, #ruhtalië *"trespass-people" = those who trespass (attested in the ablative: rohtaliello, ruhtaliello "from [our] debtors" (VT43:21)

rohta

noun. *debt, trespass

Tolkien experimented with various words for “debt, trespass” in drafts of the Átaremma prayer from the 1950s. In the earliest draft Tolkien had lucassë (VT43/8), revised to lucië in the second draft (VT43/9-10), and luhta in the third (VT43/11), all based on luc-. In the third version luhta was deleted and replaced by rohta, with luhta reappearing in the fourth version only to be revised again to rohta (VT43/11-12). In the final two versions Tolkien used úcarë (VT43/12), but this may have a different sense such as “misdeed” or “sin”: compare úcarindo “✱sinner” from the Aia María prayer (VT43/11-12).

The derivations of the luc-forms are unclear, as none of the attested meanings of the root √LUK seem to fit. Likewise the attested meaning of ᴹ√ROK has to do with horses, which also doesn’t fit.

Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would ignore the luc-forms, but would retain rohta for the sense “debt”. For example, Helge Fauskanger used rohta “debt” in his NQNT (NQNT).

úcarë

debt, trespass

#úcarë noun "debt, trespass" (úcaremmar "our debts, our trespasses", VT43:19). The related words #úcar- "to sin" and #úcarindo "sinner" would suggest that #úcarë can also be translated "sin". One may question whether the simplex form is #úcarë or just #úcar (+ -e- as a mere connecting vowel before the pronominal ending in úcaremmar), but compare lacarë, hrúcarë.