Alpha privative
An alpha privative or, rarely, privative a is the prefix a- or an- that is used in Greek and in words borrowed from Greek to express negation or absence, for example the English words ', ', and '.
It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European syllabic nasal *', the zero ablaut grade of the negation *, i.e. /n/ used as a vowel. For this reason, it usually appears as an- before vowels. It shares the same root with the Greek prefix nē- or ne-, in Greek νη- or νε-, that is also privative.
It is not to be confused with, among other things, an alpha copulative or the prepositional component an-.Cognates
The same prefix appears in Sanskrit, also as अ- a- before consonants; and अन- an- before vowels.In Latin, the cognate prefix is in-. The prepositional prefix in- is unrelated.In English and other West Germanic languages, the cognate is un-.
In North Germanic languages, the -n- has disappeared and Old Norse has ú-, Danish and Norwegian have u-, whereas Swedish uses o-, and Icelandic and Faroese use the related wikt:en:ó-#Icelandic.Homonym
The prefix ἁ- ha-, copulative a, is nearly homonymous with privative a, but originates from Proto-Indo-European *.
