In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated or ), caritive (abbreviated ) and privative (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition without or by the suffix -less.

The name abessive is derived from "to be away/absent", and is especially used in reference to Uralic languages. The name caritive is derived from "to lack", and is especially used in reference to Caucasian languages. The name privative is derived from "to deprive".

In Afro-Asiatic languages

Somali

In the Somali language, the abessive case is marked by . For example:

: "name"

: "nameless"

: "clothes"

: "clothesless," i.e., naked

In Australian languages

Martuthunira

In Martuthunira, the privative case is formed with either or .

In Uralic languages

Finnish

In the Finnish language, the abessive case is marked by for back vowels and for front vowels according to vowel harmony. For example:

: "money"

: "without money"

An equivalent construction exists using the word and the partitive:

: "without money"

or, less commonly:

: "without money"

The abessive case of nouns is rarely used in writing and even less in speech, although some abessive forms are more common than their equivalent forms:

: "unsuccessfully, fruitlessly"

: "I cried for no reason."

The abessive is, however, commonly used in nominal forms of verbs (formed with the affix / ):

: "without speaking"

: "without buying"

: "without caring"

: "The train didn't show up."

This form can often be replaced by using the negative form of the verb:

: "The train didn't show up."

It is possible to occasionally hear what is considered wrong usage of the abessive in Finnish, where the abessive and forms are combined:

:

There is debate as to whether this is interference from Estonian.

Estonian

Estonian also uses the abessive, which is marked by in both the singular and the plural:

: "without a car" (the preposition "without" is optional)

Unlike in Finnish, the abessive is commonly used in both written and spoken Estonian.

The nominal forms of verbs are marked with the affix and the abessive marker :

: "The train didn't show up."

Tallinn has a pair of bars that play on the use of the comitative and abessive, the (the nameless bar) and the (the bar with a name).

Skolt Sami

The abessive marker for nouns in Skolt Sámi is or in both the singular and the plural:

: "I cried for no reason."

The abessive-like non-finite verb form (converb) is or :

: "He/she went home without saying why he/she had come."

Unlike Finnish, the Skolt Sámi abessive has no competing expression for lack of an item.

Inari Sami

The abessive marker for nouns in Inari Sámi is . The corresponding non-finite verb form is , or .

Other Sami languages

The abessive is not used productively in the Western Sámi languages, although it may occur as a cranberry morpheme.

Erzya

In Erzya-Mordvin, the abessive case suffix is or , e.g. "endless", "homeless" etc.

Hungarian

In Hungarian, the abessive case is marked by for back vowels and for front vowels according to vowel harmony. Sometimes, with certain roots, the suffix becomes or . For example:

: "money"

: "without money"

: "home(land)"

: "(one) without a homeland"

There is also the postposition , which also means without, but is not meant for physical locations.

: "I drink tea without sugar."

: "I lived without siblings."

: "Did you come to Hungary without your sibling?"

In Mongolic languages

Mongolian

In Mongolian, the privative suffix is (). It is not universally considered to be a case, because the suffix does not conform to vowel harmony or undergo any stem-dependent orthographical variation. However, its grammatical function is the precise inverse of the comitative case, and the two form a pair of complementary case forms.

See also

  • Essive case
  • Inessive case

References

Further reading

  • Comparative concept caritive, as defined by the St.Petersburg project "Typology of caritive"
  • Glossary of linguistic terms - What is abessive case?