Hi Severin,

indeed +Björn Fromén suggested *xéya- or *xíta- in this earlier discussion:
https://plus.google.com/+TamasFerencz/posts/93hyX3z6CuC

ah thx a lot for pointing that out :D Guess I'll go with xéya, drawing a similarity to þéya- "appear, seem" and yerya- "wear out, get old", as argument for choosing the -ya over the the -ta ending...

Xíta per koita, 100% sure. After all, using -y extension after the final Y consonant is something unheard of.

+Severin Zahler PE22:156: "t, y were 'formatives' only normally used a er stems ending in w, y, as KUY, kuita, live, KAY, lie, kaita, LAW, flourish (green), grow, lauya". I think this sentence is quite self-explanatory concerning how the choice of formative extension should depend on a final consonant.

AFAIK, *þéya- itself is a reconstruction.

Hmm as I read that passage it only states that for stems in w or y you can either use formative t or y, I don't see any argument for or against either of these in that quote in our case. Of course you can draw the parallel to the words stated right next to it as example, but theres also a lot of attested verbs in ya, also quite a few with some time-relation: vanya-, yerya-, virya-, telya-, lelya-, ahya-

Assuming that a stem in y with y formative does make sense (xéy-ya >> xéya), else this quote is kinda strange if Tolkien states that a stem in Y can be followed by formative Y.

Another question that pops to the mind is whether *xiétie can be an 'event, happening'.

*xiétie may also mean something like "fugacity, volatileness, perishability" or simply "impermanence", similar to koloite "enduring, capable of bearing, tolerant" --> koloitie' "endurance", so xiétie may be the attribute of something that makes it "impermanent".

Also I feel like if you'd use *xiéte as "event" it would have that rather negative connotation of being "short-lived, volatile, impermanent"

+Severin Zahler
that's a good argument. I wonder what Tolkien would've actually used to express 'happen'. (I recall at one point he connected it to 'fate, luck' in mart-). Perhaps he would've simply used the verb tul-.

Seems like mart- has the connotation of something happening without the will or the control of the person/thing involved, cf. martya- "to destine", and perhaps read that as "command/destine what should happen with someone/something", while *xéya- / *xíta- rather has the focus on the event being of short duration and/or just impermanent.

+Severin Zahler
well, 'happen' as a verb does have a passive connotation, something that just happens to the subject without active involvement.

Well humans (and maybe elves too) always want to have a reason why something happens :P Guess in ME most things were attributed to someone, e.g. a king making something happen, or else just the Valar; Thats how I perceive mart- "something happens by the will of someone else", it may remain unsaid by whose will, then it may be implied that its by the will of the Valar or Eru perhaps

+Severin Zahler
yes, mart- as it is to me resembles wyrd

Helge and I use marta- (QL:63) for "to happen".

+Ицхак Пензев
well that's already a reconstruction, right?

+Tamas Ferencz Now, there is also PE22:124-5 tulma for 'event'. Well, and the stem úva in negative connotation.

+Александр Запрягаев great catch - that supports the idea that tul- can be used to mean " happen"

In a written literary text tul- may work. But it is overloaded enough to avoid this additional meaning in the oral speech. 'Cuz when I ask mana utúlië?, I want to be sure that I'll be understood as "What has happened?" and not "Who/What has come?"
As for tulma, this is a very useful word. I wonder how I missed it unnoticed.

Ar náto, inyë yuhta séya-, yú. [And yes, I use séya-, too.]

+Ицхак Пензев marta- seems to be attested in PE17 as synonym to martya- from Ety meaning "define, decree, destine": http://eldamo.org/content/words/word-3423653599.html

EQ mart- has an unusual form, but we know a lot of verb stems ending in t, so even if it is likely that this word is no longer valid in this form, there's nothing really speaking against using this verb in its original form.
Also mart- and martya- would form a nice couple similar to tul-/tulya- and many others, also meaning-wise:
mart- "happen (by the will of divine power, see above)
martya- "define, decree, destine", read "make happen"