The origin of the Later Egyptian discontinuous negative particle iwnA ~ in ~ AN as a reanalyzed lexical reinforcer “piece”
The origin of the Later Egyptian discontinuous negative particle iwnA ~ in ~ AN as a reanalyzed lexical reinforcer “piece”

Summary/Abstract: With the Later Egyptian negative particle best known from under hieroglyphic script as the sequence transliterated iwnA and as the Coptic ⲁⲛ an, scholarship has largely recognized the resemblance of the French ne… pas construction and the applicability of cross¬ linguistic insights around the grammaticalization of a lexical reinforcer. Yet, although this particle potentially influenced similar constructions in Arabic and Berber and even helped identify Jespersen’s Cycle, its origin remains unresolved. Here, the previously¬ unnoticed comparative implication of possible linguistic divergence identifies new Coptic evidence and thereby a new etymological candidate: a reanalyzed word meaning “piece”, which word also survives as an identicallywritten archaic noun that has been mislabeled a “prefix”. Revealingly, a preliminary database search and happenstance uncovered historic usage predicted by and congruous with this Coptic evidence, especially a manuscript variant of the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. However, more attestations are desirable, despite the improbability of their survival.

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