On the idiom of “von … über … bis zu …” in German

Question

According to this dictionary entry, von ... über ... bis zu ... means "from ... to ... to ..." and is used in complex enumerations such as the one featured in the below-quoted text:

Von den Vorsokratikern, mit denen die europäische Philosophie beginnt, über Platon und Aristoteles, sodann die Meister der Philosophie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit bis hin zu David Hume stellt der erste Band Leben, Werk und Wirkung der philosophischen „Klassiker“ vor.

However, in this text, von ... über ... bis zu ... is nicely complemented with hin, as in von ... über ... bis hin zu ..., which the same dictionary translates into English as from ... via ... through to .... (The same dictionary also translates bis hin zu, as a separate entry, as right up to).

This second translation of bis hin zu suggests that hin is used here exclusively emphatically.

(The Duden dictionary appears to have none of these alternatives recorded, with the exception of bis hin zu, which is given as a separate idiom from the basic von ... bis and all its alternatives: [bis hin zu (gibt den Endpunkt eines Bereichs an, nennt eine Person oder Sache, für die einschließlich etwas Gesagtes gilt: bis hin zum Oberbürgermeister waren alle gekommen)].)

Thus, my basic question remains whether or not hin is used in this complex idiom emphatically.

And my second question would be: is hin in this idiom an adverb?

And my final question: why doesn't the Duden Dictionary record any of the versions of bis ... zu that dict.cc records? Are these not considered idioms on their own right?

Answer 1

In fact, "von ... über ... bis zu" is not that much of an idiom.

It can be used for temporal enumerations, as the one quoted in the text, and for logical enumerations that describe a span in a certain category. For example:

Von der politischen Linken, über der politische Mitte, bis zur politischen Rechten gibt es kontroverse Diskussionen über die Verfassung.

The word ''hin'' should be read as conjoined with ''zu''. In fact, ''bis'' can be used with many different directional (but not local) adverbial phrases:

Die Rakete flog bis über den Jordan. Die Radiowellen reichen bis unter die Erde. Die Radiowellen reichen bis darüber.

To put it that way: the preposition ''bis'' indicates a directional movement or process, and is followed by another directional adverb (such as prepositional phrase).

So it remains to understand how the word ''hin'' relates to the preposition ''zu''. But that is a topic on its own and of very different nature. Just recall that ''hin'' can be used with a lot more propositions:

hin auf die Wiese, hin über den Jordan, hin unter den Meeresboden, hin in die Stadt.