| abessive case |
| Definition -
A grammatical case that expresses the lack or absence of the marked referent.
Notes: 1. In English this is expressed by the preposition without or by the suffix less. 2. The name abessive is normally used with reference to Finno-Ugric languages; whereas its synonym caritive is used when referring to Caucasian languages. |
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Example - In Finnish the abessive case is marked by -tta for back vowels, e.g., raha (money) and rahatta (without money). |
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Etymology - The term derives from the Latin abesse, to be distant. |
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Oxford English Dictionary - Its first citation is from 1890: "The comitative and abessive express respectively the presence and absence of an object." (C. N. E. Eliot Finnish Gram. 132) |