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The Indo-European Negative Prefix in N

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Louis H. Gray
Louis H. Gray*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
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Extract

The question of the mutual relation of the various privative nominal prefixes characterised by n in the Indo-European languages, as well as of these prefixes to the n-negative particles, has repeatedly been discussed from more than one point of view. Without recapitulating the theories already advanced, which may readily be ascertained from the appended bibliography, the problem may be examined anew in the light of all linguistic evidence now available. The fullest data are found in Greek, then in Italic, Indian, and Iranian; doublets of the type ∗ : ∗ne are rare in Celtic, Teutonic, and Balto-Slavic; they are not found in Armenian, which has only an = ∗ ; and their existence is questionable in Albanian.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 1925 , pp. 119 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Linguistic Society of America 1925

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References

1 Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, 1. 419, Leipzig, 1895.

2 Pedersen (1. 45) would cite here Albanian ésεłε ‘fasting’: sił ‘breakfast,’ and égel ‘fasting': gełe ‘food,‘ but this is doubted by Barić, Albanorumänische Studien, l. 59–60, Sarajevo, 1919.

3 For the distribution of the vη-compounds see Hamilton 61–62, and cf. ib. 11–13.

4 For the type , where the first of three short syllables is metrically lengthened in words of four or more syllables, see Hirt, Handbuch,2 51, and for the Sanskrit deva ‘godless,’ sat ‘non-being’ (ûpita is too uncertain to admit of satisfactory discussion), see Wackernagel, 2. 131. The Modern Greek colloquial forms ‘powerless’ : ‘to be able,’ ‘ignorant’ : ‘to discover’ are derived by Hatzidakis (Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik 431, Leipzig, 1892) from the colloquial forms . The colloquial ‘unprogressive’ beside is apparently due to analogy with some compound where - is justified.

5 Callimachus, frag. 422: ; see Burlingame 301. This is, of course, quite other than the common ‘readable.‘

6 (Boisacq 215).

7 , ib. p. 246. For ‘inviolable’ see ib. 1–2, and Ehrlich, Untersuchungen über die Natur der griechischen Betonung 227, Berlin, 1912, the latter deriving it from ∗ ‘disallowed’; ‘irresistible’ is derived by Schulze, Quaestiones Epicae 495. n. 1, Gütersloh, 1892, from ∗ -s -sgh-eto-s ‘quasi non continendus.‘

8 Brighenti, Dizionario greco-moderno-italiano, Milan, 1909; G. Meyer 11–12.

9 Kretschmer, KZ 31.407 (1902); Boisacq 57–58. Collitz, in Hamilton 11, suggests the division and connexion with the base ∗as(d)- ‘to parch, wither’; Hatzidakis, ‘. 2. 230, Athens, 1904, makes it a metrical formation on the analogy of ‘immortal': .

10 In the Epidaurian poem of Isyllus, line 66, is to be read instead of (Baunack, Aus Epidauros 18, Leipzig, 1890).

[All examples of the type are probably metrical lengthenings, graphically designated • in various ways. Cf. also Walde, Streitberg Festschrift 153 f. G.M.B.]

11 Cf. (Suidas); (Etymologicum Magnum-, s. v. ; cf. Etymologicum Gudianum, s. v. ).

12 BB 7. 328–9 (1883).

13 Kluge, in Grundriss der germanischen Philologie,2 476, connects ∗ē with ∗, ∗ ‘there’ (cf. Brugmann, Grundriss,2 2.2.816–9, Strassburg, 1911), but Brugmann (837 f). associates it rather with Greek ‘without.‘

14 Grammatik,4 194.

15 Grundriss,2 2. 1. 23, Strassburg, 1906; cf. Hirt, Akzent 312 f., Handbuch 2 458; Boisacq, 667 f.

16 BB 20. 213 (1894); cf. Solmsen, Untersuchungen zur griechischen Laut-und Verslehre 264–6, Strassburg, 1901, Brugmann, Grundriss, 2 2. 1. 22, Grammatik, 4 611.

17 KZ 23. 274 f. (1877).

18 AJP 39. 299–300, and similarly Andersen, Pāli Glossary 2, 8, 9, Copenhagen, 1904–05; cf. also, in general, Hamilton 11–15.

19 Studien auf dem Gebiete des Griechischen und der arischen Sprachen, 1. 271–6, Leipzig, 1888.

20 Cf. Boisacq. 61. 660f., 664f. [On cf. H.Güntert, Kalypso. R. G. K.]

21 For the representation before n of ∗a by a in Indian, Greek, and Latin, by u in Teutonic, and by i in Balto-Slavic, see Hirt, Der indogermanische Ablaut 18, Strassburg, 1900, Der indogermanische Vokalismus 86, Heidelberg, 1921.

22 For Indo-Greek accentuation of privative syllables see Wheeler, Der griechische Nominalaccent 45–9, Strassburg, 1885. The grade ∗an- seems also to appear in Old High German una-holda and una-odhi (cf. infra, VI).

23 Hamilton 29, finds the origin of nef as in ne fas (est).

24 Walde2 514, 519–22, 528f.

25 Ib. 517, 510.

26 Lateinisch-Romanisches Wörterbuch 2 No. 6489, Paderborn, 1901; the Rumanian negative prefix ne- (e.g. neatent ‘inattentive‘) is of Bulgarian, not Romance, origin (Tiktin, Rumänisches Elementarbuch 115, Heidelberg, 1905).

27 Meyer-Lübke, Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 435, Heidelberg, 1924.

28 KZ 31. 407.

29 Von Planta, Grammatik der oskisch-umbrischen Dialekte, 1.315–18, Strassburg, 1892–7; for other theories see ib. 1. 319 f., Walde2 381.

30 Von Planta, 1. 319–320, 2. 469; Buck, Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian 64, 192, Boston, 1904. For the omission of n in amiricatud, etc., see von Planta, 1. 52, 301, 308–13, and Buck 70 f.; for the long vowel in aan-fehtaf (if the reading is correct; cf. von Planta, 1. 206, Buck 47) see Niedermann, Historische Lautlehre des Lateinischen 2. 33 f., Heidelberg, 1911; Sommer, Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre,2 120, Heidelberg, 1914.

31 Two of the forms regarded by Whitney (Sanskrit Grammar.2 411, Boston, 1891) as containing ana- (anakämamāra, anavadya) are explicable as of the type of an-a-kasmät ‘not without a “why,” ‘ and the third (anaviprayukta) is probably an error for anatiprayukta (cf. Burlingame 299 f.).

32 2. 190 (ed. Pischel, Halle, 1877–80).

33 Whether Pischel (Grammatik 127) is correct in explaining this na- as apocopated from a a,- is not wholly certain.

34 The third word is for ∗ana-mata-agga (Burlingame, AJP 41. 69 [1920]); cf. also Andersen, locc. citt.

35 Childers, Dictionary of the Pali Language 254, London, 1875.

36 BB 3. 244.

37 La Formation de la langue marathe 287, Paris, 1920.

38 Geiger, Etymologie des Singhalesischen, 4, 43, Munich, 1897.

39 Miklosich, Ueber die Mundarten und die Wanderungen der Zigeuner Europa's, 10, 72, Vienna, 1880.

40 Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, coli. 119–22.

41 Ib. 1030.

42 Ib. 1033.

43 Horn, Grundriss der neupersischen Etymologie 263, Strassburg, 1893. He connects this nā- with Greek vη- (Grundriss, 1. 2. 193); but Hübschmann (Persische Studien 100, Strassburg, 1895), on the basis of such Pāzand words as n-dānašnī ‘ignorance’ n-kām ‘unwilling,’ n-pākī ‘impurity,’ n-šnās ‘not understanding’ (Shikand-Gûmânîk Vij, ed. Jāmāsp-Asānā and West 259, Bombay, 1887), associates it rather with Old Persian naiy ‘not.’ A closer connexion, however, would be with Avesta naē-čiš, naē-čim ‘not at all,’ naē-čā ‘and not’ (cf. Bartholomae, coll. 1033, 1034).

44 Hübschmann, Etymologie und Lautlehre der ossetischen Sprache 17, 21, Strassburg, 1887; Miller, Sprache der Osseten 84, 95, Strassburg, 1903.

45 Cf. Dottin, La Langue gauloise 106, 227, Paris, 1920.

46 Loth, Vocabulaire vieux-breton 40–41, 42, Paris, 1884; cf. Henry, Lexique étymologique. … du breton moderne 10, Rennes, 1900.

47 Pedersen, 2. 212; Stokes, Urkeltischer Sprachschatz 190, Göttingen, 1894. Henry (210) cites also Breton né-me r ‘not great’ (but cf. Old Irish nach mór ‘almost’ (Pedersen, 447), and Welsh ne-mawr ‘not much,’ for ∗neb mawr (Jones 313), né-prêd ‘never,’ né-tra ‘nothing,’ though Loth (Chrestomathie bretonne 501, Paris, 1890) more satisfactorily explains the two latter as for ∗nep pret and ∗nep tra. The view of Zimmer (KZ 24. 532–5) that ana- is found in Irish an-bsud ‘unstable,’ an-cride ‘injustice,’ an-chretem ‘unbelief,’ is not accepted by Pedersen (1. 475; 2. 6, 8, 9, 246, 248), who, further, regards the second a in Scots Gaelic ana- (as in ana-blasda ‘insipid') as due to svarabhakti (1. 330).

48 Graff, Althochdeutscher Sprachschatz, 1. 150, 4. 915, Berlin, 1834, 1838.

49 Cf. Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache 8 326, Strassburg, 1915.

50 p. 32.

51 Bruckner, Sprache der Langobarden 122, 201, Strassburg, 1895.

52 Kluge, Grundriss 2 476, 480.

53 Études sur l'étymologie et le vocabulaire du vieux slave 168 f., 232, Paris, 1902–05.

54 Miklosich, Lexicon Palaeoslovenico-Graeco-Latinum 458, Vienna, 1865.

55 Ib. 451.

56 Brugmann, Gruttdriss 2 1. 184, 190.

57 This implies also exclusion of such a base as ∗ane(e)-, ∗ano(e)- ∗ene(e)-, ∗eno(e)-, as in Old High German âno, Gothic inu(h), Greek ‘without,’ Sanskrit ano ‘not’ (cf. Hirt, Ablaut 116, Vokalismus 149).

58 Only in Modern Persian.

59 Only in Osco-Umbrian.

60 Slavic ni-, Baltic në-.