The question of the mutual relation of the various privative nominal prefixes characterised by n in the Indo-European languages, as well as of these prefixes to the n-negative particles, has repeatedly been discussed from more than one point of view. Without recapitulating the theories already advanced, which may readily be ascertained from the appended bibliography, the problem may be examined anew in the light of all linguistic evidence now available. The fullest data are found in Greek, then in Italic, Indian, and Iranian; doublets of the type ∗
: ∗ne are rare in Celtic, Teutonic, and Balto-Slavic; they are not found in Armenian, which has only an = ∗
; and their existence is questionable in Albanian.