rɣ > rg in Middle Sindarin?

Hello everyone,

I would expect Old-Sindarin Aure-galada-t to become Classical Sindarin Orialadhad, not Orgaladhad.

-re + g- > -reg- > -reɣ- > -rɣ- > -ri-, isn't it?

And the same could be said about Orgilion; why not Orilion? May it be that rɣ > rg happened in Middle Sindarin, as it happened in Vanyarin too?

Vg > Vɣ and the loss of morpheme boundary vowels are well documented, but I could only find Noldorin examples for rɣ > ri and none for rɣ > r.

If it became rg instead, we'd have to rethink Tarias and Díriel for purposes of Neo-Sindarin, since they are Noldorin and Orgaladh(ad)/Orgilion are Sindarin.

Nope. Two reasons:

Firstly, The "gil" part in Orgilion comes from the prenasalised root ÑGIL, and these never become lost like G without nasalisation. In fact prenasalised words that follow liquids consistently (seemingly) avoid mutation, like Mordor (<NDOR).

Secondly, both Orgaladh(ad) and Orgilion are "false compounds" which mean "Day of [Tree(s)/Star(s)]" rather than "Day-[thing]". That is why actually none of these "Or-" words for days show mutation.

Tarias and Díriel are fine as they are.

Then, I guess the Old-Sindarin/Primitive Quendian terms Gilyā and Gilyi were abandoned by Tolkien?

Also, I didn't know the way in which the parts of a compound interact semantically had actual phonetic effects on it. It would explain Ormenel and Orbelain as well, but there are so many other tatpurusha compounds that show regular mutations, like elvellyn, calardan, rochben, eluwaith, etc. Shouldn't they all be equally false compounds then?

I mean, they all follow the same pattern of Or-galadh; X-Y = Y of X. How would one recognice whether a tatpurusha compound is a false compound? Also, they seem to be not completely unhistorical since au > o when it became part of a polysyllable. So, which historical rules would be disabled in a false compound and which wouldn't?

[...] abandoned by Tolkien?

Yes, PE17/23 gives "√GIL >> √ÑGIL". But I only shared that information to say that even in proper compounds a prenasalised G that follows a liquid would have stayed as it is (just as the D of dor remains in Mordor, instead of becoming Ð/DH, because it came from NDOR). Not that it actually relates to the "false compound" situation.

I call them "false compounds", because if they were regular compounds like elvellon, then they would have had aur as a following element (like a suffix "-or"), as in *Menelor "sky-day = day of sky". Because "Ormenel" does not make sense (as a word for a weekday) as "day-sky = sky of day", hence it is rather "day (of) sky", which is what Sindarin normally does with phrases (e.g. Aran Moria "King (of) Moria"), but almost never with compounds. Almost, hence these "or-" words.

Not just that the word became polysyllabic, but the fact that AU came to precede a consonant cluster would have "forced" it to become O as most AU from ancient AW (cf. glaur > Glorfindel). The name Aerandir does the opposite for the same purpose (of lessening syllable weight) where the double R is shortened to single as it follows a diphthong. Though there is also Orithil (which lacks a consonant cluster), but at this point I can play the "reformed by analogy" card. As for which rules apply and which do not, our sample size is too small to tell.

Stupid me, of course it isn't the same pattern. So, a false compound is one that is X-Y = X of Y, which is semantically more as if there were two seperate words, and it means that there is no mutation but all other historical processes take place, don't they?

And, to come back to Old-Sindarin/early Middle Sindarin; there, it would not be one word "Auregaladat", but rather two more or less seperated words, like "Aure-Galadato", which joined some time after mutation time was over in Middle Sindarin, right? I mean, it must have had some kind of history.

And, one more thing, about Aerandir; I thought that were a case of haplology, since it would be Old-Sindarin Gairarandēr.