ilqa

all the, the whole (situation); everything, all

An adjective or pronoun for “all the, the whole” appearing in Demonstrative, Relative, and Correlative Stems (DRC) from 1948 as a combination of ᴹQ. il(u)- “the whole” and ᴹQ. qa- “each, every, all” (PE23/106). It also functioned as a prefix of similar meaning (PE23/101). As an adjective Tolkien specified ilqa was used with singular nouns and without the article, as in ᴹQ. ilqa nóre “all the land” (PE23/106). It could be used pronominally to mean “the whole (situation)” (PE23/105).

Conceptual Development: In drafts of DRC, ilqa meant “every, each” before being revised to qa(qe) (PE23/101 note #36). In DRC, primitive ᴹ√kwā- meant “all”, possibly related to ᴹ√KWAT “fill” (PE23/101). However, in The Etymologies of the 1930s ilqa was instead “everything”, because in that document ᴹ√KWA meant “something”, so that il-qa = “✱all things” (Ety/IL; EtyAC/KWA). The word ilqa was translated as “all” (pronoun) in ᴹQ. Fíriel’s Song, also from the 1930s (LR/72).

Neo-Quenya: In Tolkien’s later writings, IL was “all” (VT48/25) and √KWA was translated “whole, complete, all” (VT47/7, 17), but I think ilqua might still be used for “all the, the whole” with a reversal of the meaning of its elements.