The ablative case (sometimes abbreviated abl) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns and adjectives in the grammar of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. The word "ablative" derives from the Latin ablatus, the (irregular) perfect passive participle of auferre "to carry away". There is no ablative case in modern Germanic languages such as German, nor in ancient Greek.
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Latin
The ablative case in Latin ([casus] ablativus) appears in various grammatical constructions, including following various prepositions, in an ablative absolute clause, and adverbially. The ablative case was derived from three Proto-Indo-European cases: ablative (from), instrumental (with), and locative (in/at).
Greek
In Ancient Greek, there was no ablative case; some of its functions were taken by the genitive and others by the dative; the genitive had functions belonging to the Proto-Indo-European genitive and ablative cases. The genitive case with the prepositions ἀπό apó "away from" and ἐκ/ἐξ ek/ex "out of" is an example.
German
German does not have an ablative case (but exceptionally, Latin ablative case-forms were used from the 17th to the 19th century after some prepositions, for example after von in von dem Nomine: ablative of the Latin loanword Nomen). Grammarians at that time, such as Justus Georg Schottel, Kaspar von Stieler ("der Spate"), Johann Balthasar von Antesperg and Johann Christoph Gottsched, listed an ablative case (as the sixth case after nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative) for German words. They arbitrarily considered the dative case after some prepositions to be an ablative, as in von dem Mann[e] ("from the man" or "of the man") and mit dem Mann[e] ("with the man"), while they considered the dative case after other prepositions or without a preposition as dem Mann[e] to be a dative.
There is some confusion in German culture about the Latin ablative and the German dative.
Serbo-Croatian
As in Ancient Greek, the functions of the ablative case in the Serbo-Croatian language are performed by the genitive case. Of the three forms of genitive in Serbo-Croatian (partitive, possessive and ablative), the noun in the ablative genitive marks the origin of something: departure or detachment from it.
Albanian
The ablative case is found in Albanian; it is the fifth case, rasa rjedhore.
Sanskrit
In Sanskrit, the ablative case is the fifth case (pañcamī) and has a similar function to that in Latin. It is bound up with a special semantic condition, apādāna (अपादान) in Sanskrit. In fact, the fifth case (ablative) is the typical morphological realization of apādāna (Pāṇini 2.3.28).
Sanskrit nouns in this case often refer to a subject "out of" which or "from" whom something (an action, an object) has arisen or occurred: patram vṛkṣāt patati "the leaf falls from the tree".
It is also used for nouns in several other senses, as for actions occurring "because of" or "without" a certain noun, indicating distance or direction. When it appears with a comparative adjective, (śreṣṭhatamam, "the best"), the ablative is used to refer to what the adjective is comparing: "better than X".
Armenian
The modern Armenian ablative has different markers for each main dialect, both originating from Classical Armenian. The Western Armenian affix -է -ē (definite -էն -ēn) derives from the classical singular; the Eastern Armenian affix -ից -ic’ (both indefinite and definite) derives from the classical plural. For both dialects, those affixes are singular, with the corresponding plurals being -(ն)երէ(ն) -(n)erē(n) and -(ն)երից -(n)eric’.
The ablative case has several uses.Its principal function is to show "motion away" from a location, point in space or time:
It also shows the agent when it is used with the passive voice of the verb:
It is also used for comparative statements in colloquial Armenian (including infinitives and participles):
Finally, it governs certain postpositions:
Finnish
In Finnish, the ablative case is the sixth of the locative cases with the meaning "from, off, of": pöytä – pöydältä "table – off from the table". It is an outer locative case, used like the adessive and allative cases, to denote both being on top of something and "being around the place" (as opposed to the inner locative case, the elative, which means "from out of" or "from the inside of"). With the locative, the receding object was near the other place or object, not inside it.
The Finnish ablative is also used in time expressions to indicate start times (kymmeneltä "at ten") as well as with verbs expressing feelings or emotions.
The Finnish ablative has the ending -lta or -ltä, depending on vowel harmony.
Usage
Hungarian
The ablative case in Hungarian is used to describe movement away from, as well as a concept, object, act or event originating from an object, person, location or entity. For example, one walking away from a friend who gave him a gift could say the following:
a barátomtól jövök(I am coming (away) from my friend).a barátomtól kaptam egy ajándékot(I got a gift from my friend).When used to describe movement away from a location, the case may only refer to movement from the general vicnity of the location and not from inside of it. Thus, a postától jövök would mean one had been standing next to the post office before, not inside the building.
When the case is used to refer to the origin of a possible act or event, the act/event may be implied while not explicitly stated, such as Meg foglak védeni a rablótól: I will defend you from the robber.
The application of vowel harmony gives two different suffixes: -tól and -től. These are applied to back-vowel and front-vowel words, respectively.
Azeri
The ablative in Azeri (çıxışlıq hal) is expressed through the suffixes -dan or -dən:
Ev - evdən
House - from/off the house
Aparmaq - aparmaqdan
To carry - from/off carrying
Turkish
The ablative in Turkish (-den hali or uzaklaşma hali) is expressed through the suffixes -den, -dan, -ten or -tan:
Ev - evden
House - from/off the house
At - attan
Horse - from/off the horse
Taşımak - taşımaktan
To carry - from/off carrying
Ses - sesten
Sound/volume - from/off sound/volume
In some situations simple ablative can have a "because of" meaning, in these situations ablative can be optionally followed by "dolayı" (because of) preposition.
Yüksek sesten (dolayı) rahatsız oldum. / I was uneasy because of high volume.