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The sixth line of Aia María, Tolkien’s translation of the Ave Maria prayer. The first word á is the imperative particle, indicating that the verb form hyamë “pray” is an imperative. The third word rámen “for us” is combination of the preposition rá² “for” (lit. “*on behalf of”) and the dative men of the pronoun me “us”. The last word úcarindor “sinners” is the plural of úcarindo “sinner”.

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

á hyamë rá-me-n úcarindo-r = “*do pray for-us-(dative) sinner-(plural)”

Conceptual Development: In the first two versions of the prayer Tolkien suffixed the pronoun lye “you (polite)” to the imperative particle a: alye (I-II). He also used the verb arca (I-II) instead of hyamë (III-IV) for “pray”. He used several different words for the preposition “for”: atar² (I), meter (II), hrá (III deleted) and rá², always followed by the pronoun me “us”, sometimes dative (men) and sometimes not (me).

Tolkien considered several words for “sinners”: ulcarindor (I deleted), naicandor (I), naicor (I replacement), naici (II deleted) and úcarindor (IV). In version II of the prayer, Tolkien replaced “sinners” with a subordinate clause: i naici nar “*[those] who are sinners” (II deleted) >> i naiquear “*[those] who sin” (II).

Wynne, Smith and Hostetter analyzed the word naiquear as an adjective used as a plural noun: “sinners” (VT43/34). However, since it replaced a verbal phrase, I think it is likelier to be the present tense of an otherwise unattested verb naiqua- “*to sin”.

	I	II	III	IV
{arca >>}	alye		á
{alye >>}	arca		hyamë
{atarmen >>}	atarme	meterme	{hrá >>} rá men	rámen
{ulcarindor >>}	naicandor [>> naicor]	i {naici nar >>} naiquear	úcarindor