Abessive case

In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABE or ABESS), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) is the grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition or by the suffix .

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

In the Somali language, the abessive case is marked by -laa or -la and dropping all but the first syllable on certain words. For example:

In Martuthunira, the privative case is formed with two suffixes, -wirriwa and -wirraa. What determines which suffix is used in a given situation is unclear.

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

An equivalent construction exists using the word ilman and the partitive:

or, less commonly:

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 ilman forms:

...
Wikipedia