Copulative a

📅 آخر تحديث: ٢٠ يوليو ٢٠٢٦
✍️ نُشر في: ٢٠ يوليو ٢٠٢٦
الموسوعة الحرة

The copulative a (also a copulativum, a athroistikon) is the prefixἁ- (ha-) or α- (a-) used to express unity in Ancient Greek, derived from Proto-Indo-European*sm̥-, cognate to English same (see also symbel).[1]

An example is ἀδελφός (adelphós 'brother'), from *sm̥-gʷelbhos, literally meaning 'from the same womb' (compare Delphi).

In Proto-Greek, the Proto-Indo-European phoneme*s at the beginning of a word became *h by debuccalization and syllabic*m̥ became *a, giving the combined form *ha-. The initial *h was sometimes lost by psilosis or Grassmann's law.

Cognate forms in other languages preserve the original Proto-Indo-European *s. For example, the Sanskrit prefix saṃ- occurs in the name of the language, सं॒स्कृ॒तsaṃ-s-kṛtá, literally 'put together'. Less exact cognates include English same and some, and Latin simul 'at the same time' and similis 'similar'.[2][3]

Other words in Greek are related, including ᾰ̔́μᾰ (háma 'at the same time'), ὁμός (homós 'same'), and εἷς (heís 'one'; from Proto-Indo-European *sem-s).[1][4]

See also

References

  1. 12ἀ-. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  2. ↑Harper, Douglas. "same". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  3. ↑ "same" . قاموس أكسفورد الإنجليزي ( الطبعة الإلكترونية). مطبعة جامعة أكسفورد. (يشترط الاشتراك أو عضوية المؤسسة المشاركة .)
  4. ↑ ἅμα ، ὁμός ، εἷς في ليدل وسكوت .​