obroth

noun. fore-cutting

An Adûnaic word translated “fore-cutting”, referring to the wake before a boat (PM/376). It appeared more than two decades (1968) after Tolkien’s Adûnaic Grammar in Lowdham’s Report from the 1940s (SD/413-440). It is inconsistent with the earlier grammar in two respects. First, the prepositional element ob- appears as a prefix, not as a suffix as prepositions did in the earlier grammar (SD/435). Second, it includes a short o, whereas in the earlier phonetic rules of Adûnaic, only a long [ō] is allowed (SD/423). See the entry on conceptual-changes-in-late-Adûnaic for further discussion.

ob Reconstructed

preposition. fore, *before

A prepositional element only attested in the late (1968) word obroth “fore-cutting” (PM/376), referring to the wake before a boat, so perhaps meaning “✱before”. It appears only as a suffix, but in the earlier Adûnaic grammar of Lowdham’s Report from the 1940s, Adûnaic prepositions are used as suffixes (SD/435). This preposition also differs from the earlier phonetic rules of Lowdham’s Report, which allow only long [ō] in Adûnaic words. If this preposition were used in the grammatical and phonetic context of Lowdham’s Report (Middle Adûnaic), it might be the suffix ✱-ôb. See the entry on conceptual-changes-in-late-Adûnaic for further discussion.

-u-

suffix. objective inflection

The inflection used to mark nouns in the objective case (SD/430), used either as a suffix (for weak-nouns) or replacing the last vowel (for strong-nouns). Feminine nouns sometimes use -i- instead for their objective forms (SD/432), owing to the association of the final vowel -u with masculinity.

nâlu

noun. shadow

A noun attested only in the compound agannâlô “death-shadow [is]” (SD/247, VT24/12). The first element of the compound, agan “death”, as identified elsewhere (SD/426), so the remaining element must mean “shadow”. The compound is the subject of the sentence agannâlô burôda nênud “death-shadow [is] heavy on us” and is therefore in the subjective case. According the grammatical rules of Lowdham’s Report, the only possibly normal form producing this subjective is nâlu: compare nîlu “moon” to its subjective form nîlô (SD/431).

Conceptual Development: In early writings, the compound was (non-subjective) agannūlo, so that the apparent draft form of this noun was nūlo. A similar form nūlu appears on SD/306, described only as “a word with the evil sense of ‘night’ or ‘dark’”. It could be a separate word or another variation of this word, with the development nūlo >> nūlu >> nālu. Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne suggested (AAD/21) that the earlier forms may be related to ᴹQ. nulla “dark, dusky, obscure”.

ugru

noun. shadow

A noun translated “shadow” (SD/247), also described as “a word with the evil sense of ‘night’ or ‘dark’” (SD/306). It appears in the preprositional phrase ugru-dalad “under shadow” (SD/247) and in the draft-dative form ugrus “‽horror‽shadow” (SD/311).

ugrudâ-

verb. to overshadow

A verb translated “overshadow”, given as an example of a derived-verb (SD/439). It appears to contain the element ugru “shadow”, so perhaps the final element -dâ- is a causative verbal suffix.