The copulative ''a'' (also ''a'' copulativum, ''a'' athroistikon) is the
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...
''ha-'' or ''a-'' expressing unity in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
, derived from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...
*''sm̥-'', cognate to English ''same'' (see also
Symbel).
[.]
An example is ''a-delphos'' "brother", from *''sm̥-g
welbhos'' literally "from the ''same'' womb" (compare
Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The orac ...
).
In
Proto-Greek
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Aeo ...
, ''s'' at the beginning of a word became ''h'' by
debuccalization and
syllabic ''m̥'' became ''a'', giving ''ha-''. The initial ''h'' was sometimes lost by
psilosis or
Grassmann's law.
Cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...
forms in other languages preserve the ''s'': for example, the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...
prefix ''saṃ-'' in the name of the language, ''saṃ-s-kṛtā'' "put together". Less exact cognates include English ''same'' and ''some'', and Latin ''simul'' "at the same time" and ''similis'' "similar".
Other words in Greek are related, including ''háma'' "at the same time", ''homós'' "same", and ''heís'' "one" (from ).
[, , .]
See also
*
Privative a An alpha privative or, rarely, privative a (from Latin ', from Ancient Greek ) is the prefix ''a-'' or ''an-'' (before vowels) that is used in Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit and Greek and in words borrowed therefrom to express negation o ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Copulative A
Indo-European linguistics
Greek language