Reconstruction:Proto-Finnic/e-

Etymology
From ~  ~  (negative verb stem). Cognate with 🇨🇬 (whence 🇨🇬). The imperative forms are from the negative imperative verb stem.

Verb

 * 1)  not

Inflection
Used as an auxiliary verb; the main verb is then inflected in a special connegative form. The negative verb seems to only have inflected in indicative and imperative moods (with the former used for other moods).

For the indicative mood, a separate past tense stem *es- existed, which survives only in Võro, Livonian and some Estonian dialects (eg. Kodavere). In other descendants, the present forms are used instead with the connegative form replaced by the past active participle. Since a corresponding past tense negative verb stem can be found in many other Uralic languages, from Sámi to Samoyedic, a common root of *-(ń)ś- can be reconstructed.

The imperative mood stem *älä- is suppletive; many descendants show partial levelling to *elä-.

Besides the listed forms, an active present participle form can be reconstructed. It usually survives as a prefix or in further derived forms (such as the third-person plural), but seems to have become the standard third-person singular form in Livonian, Votic and some dialects of Estonian. The final -i in the other third-person singular forms probably originates from *epi (seemingly regularly shifted from earlier *epä, compare and ), but has in the past also thought to come from the agent suffix.

Descendants
The following entries are for the third-person singular indicative (present) form.