< Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/meh₁

This Proto-Indo-European entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Indo-European

Etymology

Compare Tocharian A/Tocharian B mā (“not, no”), not a prohibitive particle. According to Martirosyan, if the word originally meant ‘not’ and later obtained the function of the prohibitive, we are dealing with an Armeno-Greek-Albanian-Indo-Iranian grammatical isogloss.

Could be related to *meytH- (“to replace, switch, exchange, swap”), giving the idea of something doing wrong. See Proto-Germanic *missa- for further details.

Particle

*meh₁

  1. prohibitive particle

See also

Descendants
  • Proto-Albanian: *mē
    • Albanian: mo
  • Proto-Albanian: *mē tše
  • Proto-Armenian:
    • Old Armenian: մի (mi)
    • → Urartian: 𒈪𒉌 (/⁠mī, mi, me(i)⁠/, “usually: and; as a prohibitive: no, not”)
  • Proto-Hellenic: *mḗ
    • Ancient Greek: μή (mḗ)
  • Proto-Indo-Iranian: *maH (see there for further descendants)
  • Messapic: [script needed] (ma, “not”)

References
  • Martirosyan, Hrach (2010) Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 8), Leiden and Boston: Brill, page 468f
  • Martirosyan, Hrach (2013) “The place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family: the relationship with Greek and Indo-Iranian”, in Journal of Language Relationship‎, number 10, § 3.4, page 91
  • Abajev, V. I. (1973) “ma”, in Историко-этимологический словарь осетинского языка [Historical-Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language] (in Russian), volume II, Moscow and Leningrad: Academy Press, page 60f
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