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yasmā

ya

masc abl sg of ya (letter); masc abl sg of ya (pron); nt abl sg of ya (pron); masc abl sg of ya (cs)

1. ya (pron): whoever; whatever; whichever
2. ya (letter): (gram) letter y; 34th letter of the alphabet; palatal semi-vowel
3. ya (cs): (gram) ya; suffix used to form impersonal and passive verbs
4. ya (cs): (gram) ya; conjugational sign of group 3 divādigaṇa verbs
5. yasmā (ind): because; since; lit. from which
6. yasmā (pron): than which; than whichever

Built from

• ya — root · who, which
  The Indo-European relative pronoun (*i̯o-), shared with Sanskrit ya-, Greek ho, Latin qui, English who. Asks identity or introduces relative clauses.
• -smā — ending · ablative singular
  The ablative case morpheme for consonant stems, deriving from PIE *-sme. The ablative 'from which' sense provides the logical ground for the causal conjunction 'because'.

Analysis. yasmā is the ablative singular of the relative pronoun ya, functioning as an indeclinable conjunction. The -smā ending is the ablative morpheme (appearing with consonant stems); literal sense 'from which' develops into causal 'because'.

Etymology. ya is the Indo-European relative pronoun stem (*i̯o-), cognate with Sanskrit ya-, Greek ho (article and relative), Latin qui, English who. The ablative ending -smā (from -sma-) derives from PIE instrumental *-sme, preserved in Greek -the and Latin -ce (or -ism in certain contexts). The semantic shift from locative 'from which' to conjunctive 'because' is natural in all these languages.

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

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