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yāva

yāvant

masc voc sg of yāvant (adj); nt voc sg of yāvant (adj)

1. yāva (ind): as long as; as far as; so much so; up to; until; from… to
2. yāva (ind): how; how much; how well
3. yāvant (adj): as many as; however many; lit. having so much quality

Built from

• yā — root · this, that
  Demonstrative stem. Cognate with Sanskrit ya-, Greek ho (ho anthrōpos 'the man'), Latin qui. All from PIE *yo-, the stem for relative and demonstrative pronouns.
• -vant — ending · having (possessive suffix)
  Forms adjectives meaning 'having' or 'endowed with'. The -vant ending marks the nominative masculine or neuter singular form used predicatively or adverbially here.

Analysis. yāva is an indeclinable (likely from nom sg neut of yāvant used as an adverb); yāvant is built from yā- (demonstrative stem, 'this/that') + -vant (possessive suffix, 'having'). The core sense is 'having this much' > 'this much' > 'as much as'.

Etymology. From yā-, a demonstrative pronoun stem cognate with Sanskrit ya- and Greek ho (Ionic), Latin qui (who, which): all descend from PIE *yo-. The -vant suffix means 'having' (from √vā 'to be' or similar), so yāvant literally means 'having this much quality'. The adverbial indeclinable yāva shows the abstract neuter singular used as an invariable marker of extent or manner, common in Pali syntax.

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

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