The Greek suffix -ινδα within the Micro-Asiatic multilingual context

The Greek suffix -ινδα, which characterises adverbs denoting games (such as βασιλίνδα “king of the castle”, κρυπτίνδα “hide and seek”, on these adverbs see Dedè 2016), has a phonological shape difficult to explain within Greek and Indo-European phonology, as already observed by Pierre Chantraine (1933:277): “l’origine de ces adverbes est claire, mais le suffixe qui s’y trouve impliqué presente une structure singulière. Aucune analyse ne permet d’expliquer le groupe -νδ-”. In the same context Chantraine, also quoting a statement by Herodotus, suggested that the suffix has its ultimate origin in Asia Minor, particularly in Lydia. A fact which deserves consideration, although it is in itself not enough to demonstrate the Asiatic origin of the suffix, is the presence in the area of several place names ending in -ινδα (e.g. Πιγίνδα in Caria, Σίνδα in Pisidia). Another element, which encourages to elaborate on this perspective is the hypothesis – in our view correct – recently put forth by Paola Dardano (2011), according to which the suffix -ίδᾱς, which in the Homeric poems forms patronymics and is later refunctionalised as a suffix for deriving proper names, would have entered Greek via the Lydian language. In my talk I will take into account and discuss the hypothesis of a Micro-Asiatic origin of the suffix -ινδα, evaluating its position within the context of linguistic contact between Greek and the languages of Asia Minor.