-ndo
suffix. (masculine) agent
-ndon
suffix. -like, -ily
-mo
suffix. agental suffix
A suffix of which Tolkien said “the ending -mo often appeared in names or titles, sometimes with an agental significance” (WJ/400). It is based on the pronoun mo “(some)one”. This suffix is often specifically neuter, as in [ᴹQ.] nilmo “friend” vs. male and female [ᴹQ.] nildo and nilde (Ety/NIL).
Conceptual Development: The suffix ᴱQ. -mo appears all the way back in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s in words like ᴱQ. laulemo “inhabitant” and ᴱQ. qolimo “invalid” (QL/52, 78).
-on
suffix. masculine suffix
-r(o)
suffix. agental suffix
An agental suffix derived from ancient ✶-rō̆ (WJ/371), usually appearing as suffixal -r but sometimes as -ro as in quentaro “speaker, minstrel” (PE19/83; PE18/51). The fuller form appears especially in cases where the word is taken to be masculine: compare its feminine form [ᴹQ.] quentare “minstrel [f.]” (PE23/85). Tolkien indicated -rō was sometimes accompanied by nasal infixion, and that there was another variant -rdŏ > rd (WJ/371), but there are no clear signs of -r(d) in his later writings (but see the ᴱQ. examples below).
Based on the example ontari “parents” plural of [ᴹQ.] ontaro “parent [m.]”, it seems the usual plural form of this suffix may be -ri even in cases where -ro survived into Modern Quenya. This plural could be because of Quenya’s general dislike of repeated r-sound. However, ontaro may also be a specifically masculine form of an unattested gender neutral ✱ontar “parent” and ontari may be the plural of that gender neutral form, in which case likely there is no plural for the specifically masculine form. Regardless of the exact phenomenon in play, I would assume the plural of words like quentaro “minstrel” is quentari, referring to a group of minstrels of any gender.
Conceptual Development: There are no examples of -ro in the Early Qenya of the 1910s and 20s, but there are examples of agental -r and sometimes -ar, as in ᴱQ. maksar “cook” from ᴱQ. maksa- (QL/59), and ᴱQ. vaktelear “merchant” from ᴱQ. vaktele “trade” (QL/99). There are also examples of -r(d), such as ᴱQ. ektar (ektard-) “swordman” (QL/35) and ᴱQ. moar (moard-) “shepherd” (QL/60).
A masculine agental suffix given as -ndo in notes from around 1959 (PE17/190) and as (primitive) ✶-on, ondo in notes from the late 1960s (NM/353). A fair number of the words containing it seem to be neutral in meaning, such as Q. colindo “bearer” (LotR/953) and Q. runando “redeemer” (VT44/17). As a name suffix -on, it seems to be exclusively masculine, however.
Conceptual Development: The suffix ᴱQ. -ndo appears all the way back in the Early Qenya of the 1910s and 20s in words like ᴱQ. herendo “brother” vs. ᴱQ. heresse “sister” (QL/40) and ᴱQ. puyando “parent” (PE15/76). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, Tolkien briefly had ᴹQ. -ando as the suffixal form of ᴹQ. hando “agent (male)” under the root ᴹ√ƷAN “male” (EtyAC/ƷAN), but that version of the root’s entry was replaced and this form did not appear in the updated version.