Until I started learning about subjunctives, μή was used as a non-factual negative. With doubtful assertions and fear clauses, μή alone is not a negative. Why is that?
Hi,
I would not recommend treating μή primarily as a negative. It has a range of uses, particularly in hortatory and indefinite constructions.
English provides a useful parallel. Consider:
“Be careful lest you slip on the ice.”
There is no explicit negative here, yet it conveys something broadly similar, although syntactically different, to:
“Be careful: don’t slip on the ice!”
Both express the idea of a negative purpose or exhortation, but only the second contains a true negative. “Lest” itself is not a negative.
A similar issue arises in Latin fear clauses, although that is not directly relevant here.
In cautious assertions, there is arguably a residual sense of negative purpose. See Goodwin, §266:
Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, p. 92
See also Goodwin, §§365 ff. on fear clauses:
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Thank you. That helps.