I found the following at a site that I searched for, namely
http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/elbereth.htmwww.uib.no/People/hnohf/elbereth.htm</a> It's a fairly thorough page that goes over the entire 'hymn,' beginning with
A Elbereth Githoniel.
<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> "The element el- means
"star", while bereth according to RGEO:74 means "spouse", used of the
spouse of a king, hence coming to mean "queen". Varda is both the Queen of the
Valar and the spouse of Manwë; in Letters:282 Elbereth is
translated "Star-lady". Why is bereth is not lenited to *vereth in Elbereth, though the second element in a compound would normally be
lenited? Tolkien addressed this question in MR:387: It is because the element el- "star" was originally elen, as in Quenya, and so we have older Elenbarathi yielding Elmbereth, simplified to Elbereth, older lmb becoming lb instead of lv. Note that the word Elbereth is not directly related to Quenya Varda "Lofty, Sublime" (the Quenya form of Elbereth would have been something like *Elenvarsi, while the Sindarin cognate of Varda would have been *Baradh or possibly *Bradh, but there is no evidence that these forms were in use as names of the Starqueen)."<hr></blockquote>
I hope that helps, BW. THere is also another paragraph on Gilthoniel:
<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> "Gilthoniel "Star-kindler": Gil "bright spark, star" (as in
Gil-galad "Star of Radiance"<img src=wink.gif ALT="
"> + thoniel "kindler". In MR:388, the
latter element is said to come from a stem than, thân "kindle, set light to" + iel "a feminine suffix corresponding to male
-we". (Sindarin th cannot undergo any lenition and is therefore
unchanged when gil- is prefixed.) In Letters:278, Gilthoniel is
translated "Starkindler", but Tolkien added a note: "in the past tense: the title belongs to mythical pre-history and does not refer to a permanent
function". So somehow thoniel is marked as past tense "one having
kindled" instead of "one who is kindling (now)". If we see it as a participle,
displaying the same ending as in palan-díriel "having gazed far"
later in the hymn (as opposed to present tense palan-diriel "gazing far"
in Sam's invocation), it should have a long vowel in the past tense. Since the stem is given as than-, thân- in MR:388, not *thon-, we are evidently to understand that long á (â) became o (via au). Many parallels show this to be the case; for instance, Sindarin Anor "Sun" comes from anâr- (LR:378, stem ANÁR)."<hr></blockquote>
It's a bit confusing, too confusing for myself (studying Latin tenses and not needing to get tangled in Quenyan tenses <img src=wink.gif ALT="
"> ) but I'm sure it'll help.