Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/li

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *lei, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (pronominal root). Cognates include Lithuanian -li (as in nùli (“now, just now”), juoli (“especially, all the more so”)), Latvian -lei, -lai (as in nulei, nulai (“now, just now”)), and probably Lithuanian lai (“let”) and Latvian lai (“let”). Other cognates include Latin olle.

*li

1. question-forming interrogative particle

*li

1. if

• *li že
• *či li
• *i li

• East Slavic:
  • Old East Slavic: ли (li), ль (lĭ)
    • Old Ruthenian: ли (li), ль (lʹ)
      • Belarusian: лi (li)
      • Ukrainian: ли (ly) (dialectal)
    • Russian: ли (li), ль (lʹ); ле (le) (dialectal)
• South Slavic:
  • Old Church Slavonic:

    Old Cyrillic script: ли (li)

    Glagolitic script: ⰾⰺ (li)

  • Bulgarian: ли (li)
  • Macedonian: ли (li)
  • Serbo-Croatian:

    Cyrillic script: ли

    Latin script: li

  • Slovene: li (tonal orthography)
• West Slavic:
  • Czech: li
  • Old Polish: li
    • Polish: li (obsolete)
  • Slovak: li
  • Sorbian:
    • Upper Sorbian: li
    • Lower Sorbian: li

• Trubachyov, Oleg, editor (1988), “*li”, in Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages] (in Russian), numbers 15 (*lětina – *lokačь), Moscow: Nauka, →ISBN, page 67
• Georgiev, Vladimir I., editor (1986), “ли”, in Български етимологичен речник [Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary] (in Bulgarian), volume 3 (крес¹ – мѝнго¹), Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Pubg. House, page 385
• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973), “ли”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress