Grammar behind the flower name ワスレナグサ If I researched correctly (and with that I mean reading a bit of Wikipedia), the plant name , or when written with Kanji, is a calque of German "Vergissmeinnicht" ("forget-me-not" in English) from the early 1900s. I know that is just having gone through Rendaku, but what kind of grammar is behind the rest of the construction? I wondered because reminded me of a positive imperative rather than a negative one. If anyone has an answer, I would greatly appreciate hearing it!

I researched for a while and here's my result.

According to this site:

> forget-me-not
>
> forget-me-not

is a () of the English word forget-me-not, and is a (ateji), meaning (Don't forget me!)

However, according to this:

>

() is a (byname) for , but nowadays () is much more common than the original one.

According to this answer:

>

is the old form of , so the negative imperative / prohibitionary comes after the or terminal form of the verb, naturally becoming , and hence . Thanks to @Eiríkr Útlendi.

Hope this helps!