ἵνα

Forms

ῐ̔́νᾰ (hína) ^[1]

Etymology

The origin is not clear.^[2][3] The ending matches instrumentals such as Sanskrit येन (yéna, “by which”) and Sanskrit तेन (téna, “by that”), as well as Old High German hina (“thither”) and Old Irish cen (“on this side”).^[2][3][1] The stem ⟨ἱ-⟩ is perhaps that of the Indo-European relative Proto-Indo-European *Hyós, as in ὅς (hós), or was remade after an interrogative *τίνα (*tína).^[2][3][1] Chantraine also links it with the anaphoric pronoun ἴν (ín).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is first an adverb of place, “where”, as in the Iliad's catalogue of ships, “where the ranks of the Athenians stood”, and also a conjunction of purpose, “so that”, with the subjunctive or optative.^[5][6][2]

Semantic evolution

The local sense “where, whither” lasted in poetry and Herodotus but is rare in Attic prose, where Lysias and Plato have a few examples.^[6][4] With the genitive it meant “where in”, of circumstances: Sophocles' Oedipus is told he cannot see “in what evil” he is.^[6][7] The final sense took over, and in Hellenistic Greek the conjunction spread further, to clauses after verbs of wishing, asking and commanding, where it replaced the infinitive, and even to stand for an imperative.^[8][7] The question ἵνα τί, “for what purpose?”, is found in Aristophanes, Plato and Demosthenes.^[7]

By late antiquity it had become a simple mark of subordination, like French que.^[4] Losing its unstressed initial vowel, it became medieval and Modern Greek να (na), the particle that forms the subjunctive; the shortened form is dated to the 5th or 6th century AD.^[9][10][11]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for “where” and, with the subjunctive or optative, for “so that”.^[5][6]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses the local sense, also with the genitive of circumstance.^[6][12]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses ἵνα τί for “why?”.^[7][12]
• 1st century AD – In the New Testament it follows verbs of asking and commanding and can stand for an imperative.^[8][7]
• 5th–6th century AD – The reduced form να (na) appears.^[9][11]
• Modern Greek – να (na) is the particle of the subjunctive.^[10][11]

Meanings

Adverb

1. In which place, where; with a genitive, where in (a place or circumstance).^[6][7][5]
2. To which place, whither.^[6][7]
3. In which case, when.^[6][5]

Conjunction

1. In order that, so that, with the subjunctive or optative.^[6][7][8]
2. (Koine, New Testament) That, after verbs of wishing, asking or commanding; with the subjunctive as a substitute for an imperative.^[7][8]
3. ἵνα τί: for what purpose, why?^[7]

Related words

• ὅς (hós)
• ὅπως (hópōs)
• ὄφρα (óphra)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
5. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c d Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
12. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge