In Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, the gap beside the world through which the Sun and Moon traveled when they were not visible in the sky (SM/237, 240), also appearing in The Etymologies as compound of Ilmen and assa “hole” (Ety/GAS).
Qenya
assa
noun. hole, perforation, opening, mouth
assa
pronoun. [unglossed]
asse
pronoun. [unglossed]
asso
pronoun. [unglossed]
ilmen-assa
place name. Chasm of Ilmen
ai(a)na
pronoun. anything else, some other matter, a different matter
Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 had a set of neuter/abstract pronominal forms for the “other [thing]”. A rejected draft of the pronominal section first had {arya} “something else” (PE23/103 note #40). In the revised page Tolkien first gave apa, apana “another matter; quite a different matter”, revised to assa, astana and finally aiana, aina, with the gloss revised to “anything else; some other matter; a different matter” (PE23/104 and note #54). In this document, the neuter pronouns referred only to abstract facts; for concrete objects the personal pronoun ᴹQ. aiane was used.
DRC also had a set of adjective forms that underwent similar changes (PE23/105 and note #68). Tolkien first had apa, apana “other, quite different”. Tolkien revised this into two separate adjective forms warya “other, different” and warya, warimma “any other”. The first adjective was revised to asta, aia, then asta was deleted. The second adjective became aiana and its gloss was changed to “alien, strange, any other”, with a hard-to-read variant astana that was deleted. Later in the same document Tolkien had {arima or estima “of other kind” (PE23/106 note #80) >> warya, warima “of other sort” >>} aiana (aia) “of another sort, other” and aianima “of other sort” PE23/107 and note #89).
The full development seems to be {arya >> apa(na) >> warya >> assa, asta(na) >>} aia(na) used as both adjectives and (neuter/abstact) pronouns, with {arima/estima >> warimma >>} ᴹQ. aianima meaning “of other sort” (see that entry for details).
See the entry ᴹQ. aia(na) for references to the adjective forms from DRC. See the entry Q. hyana for a discussion of adjective forms in other conceptual periods with similar meaning.
a
preposition. [unglossed]
alama
noun. [unglossed]
amaldume
noun. [unglossed]
anaristya
noun. [unglossed]
engwa
?. [unglossed]
ente
pronoun. [unglossed]
ento
pronoun. [unglossed]
ereáma
?. [unglossed]
es
[unglossed]
hyelma
?. [unglossed]
kaltua
?. [unglossed]
kanda
noun. [unglossed]
karpalimaite
noun. [unglossed]
laqe[t]-
verb. [unglossed]
lau(w)e
?. [unglossed]
mahtya
?. [unglossed]
mai(y)a
noun. [unglossed]
maldo
noun. [unglossed]
nandakka-
verb. [unglossed]
nerno
?. [unglossed]
niule
?. [unglossed]
olta-
verb. [unglossed]
rampa
?. [unglossed]
sahte
noun. [unglossed]
sarya
noun. [unglossed]
sisíria-
verb. [unglossed]
séra
?. [unglossed]
sóla
?. [unglossed]
tante
noun. [unglossed]
tatalta-
verb. [unglossed]
teuka
?. [unglossed]
thar- Archaic
verb. [unglossed]
timpana
noun. [unglossed]
toina
adjective. [unglossed]
toróma
noun. [unglossed]
tundo
noun. hole
tyue
noun. [unglossed]
varinye
noun. [unglossed]
yelme
noun. [unglossed]
éma
?. [unglossed]
A noun in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “hole, perforation, opening, mouth” derived from primitive ᴹ✶gassā under the root ᴹ√GAS “yawn, gape” (Ety/GAS). The word assa “hole” was a more ancient name of tengwa #31 [, = ss] in notes on The Feanorian Alphabet from around the same period (PE22/21); the normal name of this tengwa is essë “name”.
Conceptual Development: The Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s had ᴱQ. apsa “hole, opening” under the early root ᴱ√AFA “open, begin” (QL/29).