care, verb do, make. The Etymologies lists a stem kar- make, do or make, build, construct (LR:362). A Quenya verb karin I make, build is quoted; the same verb (in plural form) occurs in WJ:391, in the phrase i karir quettar ómainen, those who make words with voices. (The difference in spelling, kar- rather than car-, is of no importance; this persistent inconsistency is found throughout Tolkien’s post-LotR material, and in theory both c and k represent the Tengwa calma in the "original manuscripts".) The form karir (carir) exemplifies the plural form of the aorist tense, in this case used to denote a "timeless truth". Car- is an example of a so-called basic verb, formed directly from a root (in this case kar-) without adding any ending (like the very frequent verbal endings -ta and -ya). In the primitive language, basic verbs could receive the ending *-i associated with the aorist (though whether this ending actually forms the aorist, or it is just a kind of stopgap and the mere absence of another ending indicates that the verb is to be understood as an aorist, is not entirely clear). In Quenya, final short *-i in the primitive language came out as -e (cf. for instance are day from primitive ari, LR:349 s.v. ar1-). The primitive aorist *kari likewise became care as in the text before us, but if one adds any ending so that *-i is not final, it retains its original quality: hence plural karir (carir) rather than *karer. As for semantics, the difference between aorist care, cari- and the continuative/"present" tense *cára may perhaps be compared to the distinction between English does as opposed to
is doing (or makes vs. is making). If we have correctly interpreted the sentence na care indómelya as a subject-less construction *wish that [one] does thy will, it becomes clear why the aorist is used here: Much as in the phrase i karir quettar, where the idea is that the Elves (always, permanently, generally) make words, the idea is here that God’s will should (always) be done. The aorist denotes an "indefinite" action, unlimited or unmarked as to time. On the other hand, *na cára indómelya with the continuative form of car- would perhaps rather be a prayer for a specific situation, expressing a wish that God’s will is being done in one particular matter. – Not all of the aorist forms in the text before us behave quite like we would expect from other examples. Peculiarly, the ending -e does not seem to become -i- when an ending is added. One example of a "well-behaved" aorist has already been quoted several times: The late source reproduced in WJ:391 (ca. 1960) indicates that the plural aorist of car- is carir (there spelt karir). This agrees with much earlier material, far predating the text before us. Yet in the Lord’s Prayer, where what is essentially the same verb occurs with a prefix, we find the form úcarer (q.v.) Why not *úcarir? Likewise, apsenet "[we] forgive them", probably another aorist, might be expected to appear as *apsenit instead; because of the suffix -t them the original ending *-i is not final and therefore should not change to -e. Yet these examples are not unique. In SD:290, reproducing a source from ca. 1945-46, we have the strange form ettuler for *come forth. Again we might expect *ettulir instead, according to the system Tolkien had used in the Etymologies (of ca. 1935+; LR:395 s.v. tul- has tulin rather than *tulen for I come) and the early LotR drafts (cf. sile vs. pl. silir rather than *siler in RS:324). The published LotR contains no example of an aorist, but interestingly, the forms carnemírië red-jeweled and airetári holy-queen that do occur in this work seem to display the same phonological oddity: The e of carne and aire represents primitive i (ancestral forms karani red, *gaisi holy), and where it is not final it "ought" to remain i. These examples, already discussed in the entry aire above, should evidently not be seen as casual "mistakes" made by Tolkien. Rather it seems that in the latter half of the forties and in the early fifties, his evolution of Quenya was in a phase where the original quality of -e descended from primitive short -i was nowhere preserved. Perhaps he imagined that extensive analogical leveling had taken place, so that though original -i "properly" became -e only when final, the new quality of the vowel was eventually introduced also where it was not final. Hence carir make as the pl. aorist of the verb car- was changed to #carer because of analogy with care makes (itself < *kari). But it would seem that Tolkien later (not later than 1959-60) changed his mind yet again and reestablished the earlier system, since the aorist karir/carir rather than **karer reappears in a source dating from about 1960 (WJ:391). Likewise Tolkien changed carnemírië to carnimírië in the revised edition of LotR (1966). Airetáre was kept in this form and not altered to *Airitári, but as we have already discussed, the initial element was reinterpreted to mean sanctity rather than holy.