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kiñca

kiñcati

imp 2nd sg of kiñcati (verb)

1. ka (pron): who?; what?; which?
2. ka (pron): where?
3. ki (pron): who?; what?; which?
4. kiñca (sandhi): and what?
5. kiñca (sandhi): why not?; but why?
6. kiñcati (pr): crushes; tramples
7. kiṃ (pron): who?; what?; which?
8. kiṃ (ind): how?; what?
9. …

Built from

• kiṃ — root · what
  Interrogative pronoun from Indo-European *kwid; cognates Latin quid, English what, German was. Asks for specification of an object or state.
• ca — root · and
  Additive conjunction joining clauses or shifting focus; from Indo-European *-kwe (as in Latin -que). Here it softens the question into a rhetorical appeal.

Analysis. kiṃ (interrogative pronoun "what?") + ca (conjunction "and"). The sandhi form kiñca typically introduces a rhetorical question or mild objection: "and what (of it)?", "but why (not)?"

Etymology. kiṃ derives from Indo-European *kwid ("what"), cognate with Latin quid, English what, German was. The ca is the additive conjunction "and", from *-kwe (the same enclitic in Latin -que). Together they form a common paratactic formula in both Pali and Sanskrit prose.

Meanings from the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary; morphology and etymology by Claude.

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