încă

Forms

încă^[1] Before o the final vowel is often dropped, as in Eminescu's line „Înc-o gură și dispare” “one more mouthful and it is gone”.^[2][3] Old texts also have the extended forms încăși and încășile.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin unquam (“ever, at any time”) according to DEX, MDA2 and Wiktionary.^[6][7][1] Ciorănescu calls this probable.^[8] Pușcariu proposed this etymon with some hesitation, and Candrea–Densusianu and Leo Spitzer accepted it.^[8][9] Ciorănescu thinks the change began in negative sentences with nec (“nor”): „încă nu s-a însurat” could first have meant “he never married” and then “he has not married yet”.^[8] The sounds fit, with ⟨un-⟩ before a consonant becoming ⟨în-⟩ as in umple and umbla, but he finds the change of meaning unclear.^[8][5] Candrea–Densusianu point to old uses close to the Latin sense “never”, such as „nu încă voiu mai da voao pae” “I will not give you straw any more” in the Bible of 1688.^[5]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian ningã, Megleno-Romanian ancă and Istro-Romanian incă.^[8][10][11] Candrea–Densusianu explain the Aromanian form as fused with a negative particle ⟨ni-⟩, and Wiktionary derives it from numquam (“never”).^[5][1]

Ciorănescu calls the likeness to Italian anche, Old Occitan anc and Old French ainc striking; those words are themselves poorly explained.^[8] Meyer-Lübke set up Vulgar Latin *anque for them, and others proposed *anqua or Latin hanc rem.^[8][9] Some scholars explained this word through the same form as well, and Scriban derived it from *anca, a shortening of hanc horam “this hour”.^[8][4] The DA takes all these to be one word, with Spitzer's view that their senses grow out of the temporal sense of the Latin adverb; the initial ⟨a-⟩ of the western forms may come from other adverbs beginning with ⟨a-⟩.^[3] Nocentini derives the whole group from Meyer-Lübke's form or from *anquam, from antequam (“before”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, and in all the later 16th-century psalters.^[13] Tiktin dates it to the Codicele Voronețean (Acts 18:18), with the sense “still, also”.^[14] In the old texts it already had both the temporal sense “still, yet” and the additive sense “moreover, besides”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The DA separates a modal use, which adds something to what has been said (“in addition, also, even”), from a temporal use (“still, again, already”).^[3][6] The DA's first quotation for the modal use is from the Moldavian law code of Vasile Lupu: „Și încă să plătească precât va fi prețul aceii vii” “and moreover let him pay as much as the vineyard is worth”.^[3][7] The temporal sense was already established when the 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicons used the word to translate the Slavonic word for “still”.^[15]

Old texts also kept a sense “ever, never” closer to Latin, and CADE quotes it in old texts as well as in Creangă.^[16][5] Before an adverb of past time it means “already”: încă de ieri “since yesterday already”.^[14] Combined with dar it means “let alone, all the more (or less)”, and in folk verse it can mean simply “also”.^[14][6]

Timeline

• early 16th century – încă in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• 16th century – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[14]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon uses it for Slavonic “still”.^[15]
• 1688 – used 758 times in the Bucharest Bible.^[17]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda glosses it with Latin adhuc and German noch.^[18]

Meanings

Adverb

1. In addition, besides, moreover: A mai venit încă un prieten. The phrase ba încă means “and even more than that”, încă pe atât “twice as much”.^[6][7]
2. (regional) likewise, also.^[6][7]
3. (regional) even.^[6][7]
4. again, once more; shows that an action is repeated: încă o dată “once again”.^[6][7]
5. still, up to now and continuing: Ploua încă.^[6][19]
6. In negative sentences, yet, so far: Nu a sosit încă.^[6][14]
7. Already, as early as: încă de mic “from a young age already”.^[6][20]

Related words

• Aromanian ningã
• Latin umquam

Usage notes

Încă may stand before or after the verb: n-a venit încă and încă n-a venit are both usual.^[4][14] With a negation it can mean “not even”, as in the folk line „Și-ncă nu le-ai sătura”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 589
3. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. încă
4. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 678
5. ^ a b c d e Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. încă
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 537
7. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1202
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. încă
9. ^ a b Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 69
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 767
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 14
12. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. anche
13. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 8:7
14. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. încă
15. ^ a b Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. încă
16. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească, p. s.v. încă
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 7:4
18. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 21
19. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. încă
20. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 313