The Quenya word for “foot” derived from the root √TAL of similar meaning (PE19/103; VT49/17; Ety/TAL). Given its Sindarin cognate S. tâl (not ✱✱taul) its ancient stem form must have had a short vowel, with the long vowel in the uninflected form the result of the subjective noun case which lengthened the base vowel of monosyllables (PE21/76). Q. tál could also refer to the bottom of things (PE21/21, 76) analogous to English “foot of the mountain” and similar phrases.
Conceptual Development: The earliest iteration of this word was ᴱQ. tala “foot” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the early root ᴱ√TALA “support” (QL/88), a form also appearing in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/88). In the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s it became ᴱQ. tál with plural tăli indicating an ancient short vowel (PE14/43, 76). In the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, ᴹQ. tāl had inflected forms with tal-, again indicating a short vowel in the stem (PE21/21), and likewise with the (1930s-style) genitive form talen in The Etymologies written around 1937 (Ety/TAL). Most of its later appearances also imply a short vowel in the stem, the main exception being the plural form táli in the 1950s version of the Nieninquë “poem”.
talta- vb. "slip, slide down, collapse, slope" (TALÁT); reduplicated stem in the participle talta-taltala in Markirya, simply translated "falling" in MC:215. Strong intransitive conjugation: present talta, aorist talt- [derived from talati > talti, hence presumably *talti*- with endings and taltë without any], past talantë, perfect ataltië. Weak transitive conjugation: present taltëa, aorist talta, past taltanë**. This is said to be the conjugation type of a certain class of verbs, namely "√TALAT stems" (PE17:186).