-ia and i-affection

Tom Bombadil #1243

On Eldamo's Sindarin Phonetics, it is assumed that CjV > CiV happened before the first stage of i-affection. Are we entirely sure this is not the other way around? I-raising is effectively the opposite of a-affection, but a-affection is hardly undone in any word that ended in -ja in Old-Sindarin.

If the suffix was already -ia before i-raising happened, wouldn't we expect delia to be dylia (dulja > dolja > dolia > dulia > dylia), nedia- to be nydia-, and gwain to be gwîn (gwinja > gwenja > gwenia > gwinia > gwini > gwin > gwîn), and mein to be mîn, feir and fair to be fîr, dail to be dîl, etc.?

We could assume that -ia did not instantly cause i-affection - maybe i was still too j-like, it was a gradual process after all, or maybe a-affection was still an active enough process to prevent this - but wouldn't it be less far-fetched to assume that -Cja > -Cia after the first and before the second stage of i-affection?

For the sake of completeness, I found one counterexample, tiria- is not teria-, but that might be because it was/is tíria-, and this is the only counterexample I could find.

Elaran #1245

You seem to have missed a crucial detail. Raising is triggered by final I only. Thus, if the word had further sounds after I, this rule did not take place. Hence "nutja- > [see below] notja- > [no raising] notia- > [just fronting] nœtia- > nœdia- > nedia-" and so on.

That change from "nutja-" to "notja" is not caused by A-affection (u>o can happen without it, cf. tul->tol-). Because like the raising rule, A-affection is also triggered by final A only. And the A in "A-verbs" is not considered final, because it is rarely so in actual usage. For example in nedion -N makes it non-final and it is not even an A but O (due to ā>ǭ>au>ō/o). Hence the "counterexample" tiria-... and dilia-, and thilia-, and siria-, and ista-, and mista-, and tinna-, and thinna-, and... so on.

The rules are fine as they are.

Tom Bombadil #1246

Thanks for your answer, delia and Gondolin have been giving me such headaches.