mi

mi¹ unstressed pronoun “me”

Pronunciation

• /mi/^[1]

Forms

mi (first person, objective case)^[1]

Etymology

The pronoun is inherited from Latin mē (“me”) and Latin mihi (“to me”), whose shortened form mī was also used.^[2][3][4][5] The sources weigh the two differently: Nocentini sees Italian “mi” as the continuation of the dative “mihi”, which absorbed the accusative, the reverse of what happened in French and Spanish, where the accusative “mē” absorbed the dative;^[6] Wiktionary derives it from “mē” and only in part, as an indirect object, from “mihi”;^[1] DEI gives “mē” alone.^[7] The same outcome is Sardinian mi and Romanian mie.^[6]

The Latin accusative goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₁mé, the accusative of the first-person pronoun, and the dative to *h₁méǵʰyo, as Umbrian mehe (“to me”) shows.^[8][1] Related forms are Ancient Greek με (me), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌺 (mik) and Old Church Slavonic мѧ (mę).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Ritmo laurenziano at the end of the 12th century, with the dative sense “to me”.^[2] Nocentini dates the pronoun to the first half of the 13th century,^[6] and the accusative “me” is recorded in the 14th century and very often in Dante.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the early centuries mi could also be the stressed pronoun, as it still is in the northern dialects, where it corresponds to standard io and me.^[2][6] Old Italian attached it to finite verbs, as in Dante's “Ruppemi l'alto sonno ne la testa / un greve truono” (a heavy thunder broke the deep sleep in my head, Inferno 4);^[9] this placement (dissemi, veggomi) is now out of use, and the pronoun follows only infinitives, gerunds, participles, imperatives and ecco.^[5]

Colloquial Italian repeats it beside a me (a me non mi piace), a usage Tommaseo already illustrated with 16th-century comedies.^[3][9] It also serves as an ethical dative, expressing the speaker's involvement: stammi bene!, “take care (for my sake)!”.^[10][1]

Timeline

• Late 12th century – The Ritmo laurenziano has mi “to me”.^[2]
• First half of the 13th century – Nocentini's date for the pronoun.^[6]
• 14th century – The accusative sense “me” is recorded.^[2][4]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. me, as a direct object: Laura mi ha chiamato ieri sera.^[3][11][4]
2. To me, for me, as an indirect object: mi porti il giornale?.^[3][5][10]
3. In reflexive and pronominal verbs of the first person singular: mi alzo alle sette, mi pento.^[5][4]
4. (colloquial) As an ethical dative, showing the speaker's involvement: non mi fare arrabbiare.^[10][1]
5. (colloquial) Repeating or anticipating a me: a me questa idea mi convince poco.^[3]

mi² musical note

Etymology tree of mi²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin mirus

Italian mi

From the same root · mi²

Latin mire ← mirus

Latin mirificus ← mirus

Pronunciation

• /ˈmi/^[1]

Forms

mi^[1]

Etymology

The note is borrowed from Latin mira (“wonderful”), the first syllable of “Mira gestorum” (the wonders of [your] deeds), a half-line of the Latin hymn to Saint John the Baptist attributed to Paul the Deacon.^{[2][6][11][4]} In the 11th century Guido of Arezzo used the hymn as a memory aid because each of its half-lines begins one step higher in the scale, and named the notes after their first syllables (see do).^[2][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the 14th century, in Antonio de' Carelli, as the third note of the scale of C.^[2][11][6]

Semantic evolution

The sense “tone, string or key that gives the note mi” is recorded by Petrocchi in 1891,^[2] and the word also names a key, as in mi minore.^[11] The names of the notes were sung in sequence in solmization: Tommaseo quotes Allegri's “Con un confuso do, re, mi, fa, solle” (with a muddled do, re, mi, fa, sol), and an older series that began with ut.^[9] The word passed into French as mi and into German as Mi (1732).^[12]

Timeline

• 14th century – Antonio de' Carelli uses mi for the third note of the scale.^[2][11]
• 1541 – The note is named in Doni.^[7]
• 1732 – German Mi is recorded.^[12]
• 1891 – Petrocchi records the sense “string or key of mi”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (music) The third note of the scale of C major, E: il tenore ha attaccato su un mi acuto.^{[11][3][4][1]}
2. The string or key of an instrument that gives this note.^[11][2]
3. The key whose tonic is this note: un concerto in mi maggiore.^[11][1]

Word family

• solmizzazione