linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

, abessive (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

or ), caritive and privative (

) is the

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition ''

without Without may refer to: * "Without" (''The X-Files''), an episode in the eighth season of ''The X-Files'' * "without", an English preposition * "Without", a film that premiered at the 2011 Slamdance Film Festival * "Without", a song by Jack Savore ...

'' or by the suffix ''

-less A privative, named from Latin '' privare'', "to deprive", is a particle that negates or inverts the value of the stem of the word. In Indo-European languages many privatives are prefixes; but they can also be suffixes, or more independent elements. ...

.'' The name ''abessive'' is derived from "to be away/absent", and is especially used in reference to

Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...

. The name ''caritive'' is derived from la, carere, link=no "to lack", and is especially used in reference to

Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

. The name ''privative'' is derived from la, privare, link=no "to deprive".

In Afro-Asiatic languages

Somali

In the Somali language, the abessive case is marked by or and dropping all but the first syllable on certain words. For example: : "love" : "loveless" : "clothes" : "clothesless," i.e.,

naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

In Australian languages

Martuthunira

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

In Uralic languages

Finnish

In the

Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedis ...

, the abessive case is marked by for back vowels and for front vowels according to

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, mea ...

. For example: : "money" : "without money" An equivalent construction exists using the word and the

partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...

: : "without money" or, less commonly: : "without money" The abessive case of

nouns A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

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 Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

has a pair of bars that play on the use of the

comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...

and

abessive In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated or ), caritive 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 ...

, the Nimeta baar (the nameless bar) and the Nimega baar (the bar with a name).

Skolt Sami

The

marker for nouns in Skolt Sámi is ''-tää'' or ''-taa'' in both the singular and the plural: :''Riâkkum veäʹrtää.'' "I cried for no reason." The

-like non-finite verb form (

converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...

) is ''-ǩâni'' or ''-kani'': :''Son vuõʹlji domoi mainsteǩâni mõʹnt leäi puättam.'' "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

marker for nouns in

Inari Sámi Inari Sámi (, "the Inarian language", or , "the Inari (Aanaar) Sámi language") is a Sámi languages, Sámi language spoken by the Inari Sámi people, Inari Sámi of Finland. It has approximately 300 speakers, the majority of whom are middle-ag ...

is ''-táá.'' The corresponding non-finite verb form is ''-hánnáá,'' ''-hinnáá'' or ''-hennáá.''

Other Sami languages

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

cranberry morpheme In morphology (linguistics), linguistic morphology a cranberry morpheme (also called unique morpheme or fossilized term) is a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned an ''independent'' meaning and grammatical function, but nonetheless serves ...

Hungarian

In Hungarian, the abessive case is marked by ''-talan'' for back vowels and ''-telen'' for front vowels according to

. Sometimes, with certain roots, the suffix becomes ''-tlan'' or ''-tlen''. For example: :''pénz'' "money" :''pénztelen'' "without money" :''haza'' "home(land)" :''hazátlan'' "(one) without a homeland" There is also the postposition ''nélkül,'' which also means without, but is not meant for physical locations. :''Cukor nélkül iszom a teát.'' "I drink tea without sugar." :''Testvér nélkül éltem.'' "I lived without siblings." :''Eljöttél Magyarországra a testvéred nélkül?'' "Did you come to Hungary without your sibling?"

In Turkic languages

Bashkir

In Bashkir the suffix is ''-һыҙ''/''-һеҙ'' (''-hïð''/''-hĭð'').

Turkish

The suffix ''-siz'' (variations: ''-sız'', ''-suz'', ''-süz'') is used in Turkish. Ex: ''evsiz'' (''ev'' = house, houseless/homeless), ''barksız'', ''görgüsüz'' (''görgü'' = good manners, ill-bred), ''yurtsuz''.

Azerbaijani

The same suffix is used in the Azerbaijani language.

Chuvash

In Chuvash the suffix is ''-сӑр''.

Kyrgyz

In Kyrgyz the suffix is ''-сIз''.

In Mongolic languages

Mongolian

In Mongolian, the privative suffix is (). It is not universally considered to be a case, due to the fact that the suffix does not conform to

or undergo any stem-dependent orthographical variation. However, its grammatical function is the precise inverse of the

comitative case In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...

, and the two form a pair of complementary case forms.

References

External links

Comparative concept caritive, as defined by the St.Petersburg project "Typology of caritive"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abessive Case Grammatical cases