Ablative (Noun)
Meaning
The case indicating the agent in passive sentences or the instrument or manner or place of the action described by the verb.
Classification
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents.
Examples
- The ablatives "by the dog" and "with a stick" are used to indicate the agent and instrument in the passive sentence.
- In Latin, the verb "[to help]" often takes the ablative to denote the one receiving help as in "[he helps me]."
- In the sentence "[she was stung by the wasp]," "by the wasp" functions as an ablative, indicating the agent.
- The ablative case ends in suffixed -i in some verb phrases like "made by +agent".
- In SAE, one uses the preposition "by" to form an ablative that functions most commonly as a passive agent in action noun phrases