With the appearance of VT46 with Part Deux of the Addenda and Corrigenda to
the Etymologies, let us briefly review parts of the new data. Eventually, I
intend to work the new info and words into my Ardalambion
articles/wordlists; the Quenya wordlists are already updated with the
material from the first part of the Addenda (VT45).

Of course, many of the addenda/corrigenda presented in VT45-46 are utterly
trivial (CJRT seems to have missed quite a few hyphens at the end of verbal
stems...), but others are quite interesting.

The Noldorin past tenses in _-as_ have been discussed in several articles
by various researchers; we have seen theories seeking to explain how they
differ (semantically) from the past-tense forms in _-ant_. However, it may
be that a simple phonological rule is involved. David Salo suggested to me
that the condition for the use of the suffix -(a)s is "alveolar
non-sibilant obstruent as final stem consonant"; otherwise we see -(a)nt.
But as David also pointed out, by this rule the past tense of _teitha-_
should be *_teithas_, and yet we have _teithant_ in the (canonical!) Moria
Gate inscription. If so, the past tense forms in -as may be a feature of
Noldorin which Tolkien did not carry over into Sindarin. It remains, in any
case, a formation that is not attested in any published example of Sindarin
proper (whereas most of the other past tense formations attested in the
Etymologies can be demonstrated to have survived into Sindarin).

Some other Noldorin past tenses presented in the Corrigenda also look at
least slightly doubtful. We are given _degant_ as one pa.t. derived from
NDAK- "slay" (VT45:37); the umlauted stem-vowel is very surprising,
especially when we take into account entirely parallel cases like _dravant_
and _hafant_ (VT45:8, 20: not **_drevant_, **_hefant_). I tend to assume
that the intended word was _dagant_, and if it is quite impossible to read
the manuscript thusly, Tolkien himself may have misquoted the word.
Otherwise we should have to postulate an absolutely unique case of an
umlauted stem-vowel invading forms of the verb where it is not historically
or phonologically justified -- not even supported by parallel examples in
Etym itself.

Then there is "eglant" as the supposed past tense of _egledhio_ "go into
exile" (VT45:27). Is this supposed to be a contraction of *_egledhant_, the
syllable representing the central element of the verbal stem dropping out
between the prefix (eg-) and the past tense suffix (-ant)? A dramatic
reduction indeed! In the alternative pa.t. _egledhas_, the middle syllable
is still in place. Since there are no parallels to such a reduction
anywhere, I (and David) tend to think that the intended reading is
*_eglent_, the final syllable representing simply the root LED with the
nasal infixion often occurring in the past tense. The devoicing of a final
consonant (D > T) is unusual but not unprecedented; consider how Tolkien
derives Noldorin _belt_ from Old Noldorin _belda_ (entry BEL in the printed
Etym).

"Haen" (far) in the entry KHAYA (VT45:21) should probably read _haer_.
Lower-case _r_ and _n_ could easily be confused. Compare the Quenya cognate
_haira_ as well as Sindarin _Haerast_ "Far Shore" (see the entry _Nevrast_
in the Silmarillion Appendix).

Noldorin _dost_ = "brown"? The facsimile reproduced in VT45:10 indicates
that the gloss is indeed difficult, but it looks more like "burn", the
alternative reading also presented by the Editorial Team (VT45:11). The
primitive form would most likely be *_dustâ_, which hardly looks like an
adjective (least of all a color-adjective; they tend to be derived by the
simple ending -i). *_Dustâ_ looks like a verb or possibly a noun. It may
not necessarily be "(a) burn" as a noun, but perhaps "burn" as a verb (more
fully *_dosta-_; compare such apparently incomplete annotation as _dant-_
"to fall" in the entry DAT, where the final vowel is again omitted --
contrast Quenya _lanta-_).

In the second part of the Addenda and Corrigenda (VT46), I don't
immediately notice anything suspect transcriptionwise, but there are
certain amusing things. _Nos Chweanor_ for "the House of Feanor" gives us a
glimpse of a short-lived conceptual phase which had _f_ leniting to _chw_!
Then Tolkien thought better of it and changed it to _Nos Feanor_ (VT46:6),
confirming our general impression that _f_ is immune to lenition. I guess
the Professor for a moment considered the possibility of an _f_:_chw_
pattern, probably introduced by analogy with _hw_:_chw_.

In my article about the phonological development from Primitive Elvish to
Quenya, I cite _verno_ "husband" from primitive _besnô_ as an example of
_s_ being voiced to _z_ (and later becoming _r_) between a vowel and a
following nasal. This was based on the entry BES as printed in Lost Road,
of course. However, according to VT45:7, _verno_ should actually read
_venno_, _s_ being fully assimilated before the nasal. This would agree
with the development observed in the case of _ammale_ "yellow bird" from
older _asmalê_ (SMAL): _sn_ > _nn_ like _sm_ > _mm_. Yet in the second part
of the Corrigenda, a brand new example of _sn_ > _zn, rn_ turns up: in the
entry PHAS, we have the word _fazne_, _farne_ "foliage" (VT46:9; the most
primitive form would be *_phasnê_, I guess). So maybe Tolkien was not quite
sure about how intervocalic _sn_ was to develop? Or maybe _venno_ should
after all read _verno_, as CJRT originally transcribed it?

Incidentally, I see the editors want to connect _farne_ "foliage" with
_Orofarne_, the name of one of Bregalad's rowan-trees. However, Tolkien
himself translated this name as "mountain-dwelling" (Letters:224). Over the
years he may, of course, have changed his mind about the exact meaning, but
we cannot jump to the conclusion that the second element necessarily means
"foliage".

Q _farya-_ "suffice", pa.t. _farinye_ as well as _farne_?! (VT46:9) The
form _farinye_ is rather surprising as a past tense. It rather looks like
the aorist of a basic verb *_far-_ (with the long 1st person suffix _-nye_
instead of the short variant _-n_). But here, -nye would seem to originate
as some sort of nasal-infixed variant of the suffix -ya, the final vowel
changing from -a to -e, the universal final vowel in Quenya past tense
forms. Other evidence from Etym does not suggest that verbs in -ya are to
behave in such a way; in the entry ULU we learn that the (transitive) past
tense of _ulya-_ is simply _ulyane_, not **_ulinye_ or whatever. In the
Etymologies, _farinye_ is certainly a unique past tense formation, and
nothing like it occurs in the published corpus for later Quenya either.

- HKF