The Ablative Case - For Conlangers

Hello everyone! Welcome to Parchment Lore!
In this video, we look at the Ablative case, and how its meaning has evolved from simply "movement away from" to instrumental, locative, and other applications! To accomplish this, we'll go through some of the uses of the Ablative case in Latin and Finnish. In addition, we'll observe how Ablative expressions arise through grammaticalization! We'll look at some specific sources from which it may come from.
In the last section of the video, we will see some examples of where the Ablative case may evolve to, including comparative, adverbial, and partitive uses! Hopefully this video gives you some conlang inspiration! This video started as a research project for my own constructed languages, but as I delved deeper I thought it was too interesting to not share with you all!
If you like this video, consider liking and subscribing! If you have any suggestions for future videos, put them in the comments! In all probability those ideas will end up on my recording schedule! Also, let me know if this kind of video is too long or short for your tastes, I'm still testing the waters to see what works!
Thanks for watching!
My Website:
parchmentlore.com
(Note: Through a production error that I just discovered, the name Clemens Niemi is misspelled/mispronounced as Clemens Nieli... My apologies, and thanks for your understanding!)
A complete Latin Grammar by Albert Harkness:
archive.org/details/cu3192402...
Allen and Greenough's New Latin grammar for schools and colleges, founded on comparative grammar by Joseph Henry Allen, J.B. Greenough, et. al.:
archive.org/details/allengree...
A Finnish Grammar by Clemens Niemi:
archive.org/details/finnishgr...
Diccionario general etimologico de la lengua española (General etymological dictionary of the Spanish language) by Eduardo de Echegaray (For the etymologies of "desde and desque"):
archive.org/details/diccionar...
0:00 Introduction
00:48 What is the Ablative case?
2:49 The Ablative Proper
5:41 The Instrumental Ablative
8:35 The Locative Ablative
10:29 Finishing up the Latin Ablative
11:01 The Finnish Ablative
12:11 Origin of the Ablative
14:40 Evolution of the Ablative
18:51 Conclusion
#conlang #ablative #linguistics

[@ParchmentLore]

Hello everyone! Thanks for watching! If you have any questions or suggestions for future videos, put them in this comment section! Also, if you don’t want to miss out on more Parchment Lore content, be sure to subscribe!

[@gabor6259]

In Finnish the stress is always on the first syllable, and you didn't adhere to that. But useful video.

[@imrukiitoaoffire1908]

It's important to note that the ablative case itself was largely the reason why Latin lost its cases entirely, every other case seemingly was either dropped or collapsed into the ablative, until finally you have the situation today with regard to the Romance languages, seeing as the ablative took up so many roles in Latin it just became synonymous for everyday use that people ended up forgetting or forgoing the other cases, especially as can seen in the example of the genitive, at the dismay of its loss in my opinion. It's important to note that the Balto-Slavic languages all lack the ablative as it seemingly collapsed into at least some of the other cases, what those are I don't recall off the top of my head, however; because of the loss of the ablative in these languages; to this day these languages have retained their cases, inspite of the fact of having gone through much of the same pressures for the cases to collapse.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much for sharing! I believe another commenter said that the Balto-Slavic ablative was absorbed into the Genitive, which makes sense... Maybe a major factor of case loss (without any phonological havoc) is having a case that can absorb so many other functions, like an ablative or dative case... However, German still has a functioning case system even though cases like the instrumental and ablative were absorbed into the dative, so I guess the theory doesn't quite hold up... Thanks for the information! I knew that a big factor in the loss of case endings in the Romance languages was sound change, but I didn't know that the ablative case was such a large part of it too! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@Me-mt9rq]

This channel is a hidden gem.

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! Thank you so much! That means a lot! I'm always excited to make content about conlanging or other language-related stuff, so it means a lot that you got some value out of it! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@dionnix]

indeed

[@rossjennings4755]

Learning a bit of Hungarian, which has something like 18 cases, taught me that sometimes the line between cases and prepositions or postpositions can be a pretty thin one. From that perspective, it's interesting to see how Latin uses both together to create various more nuanced meanings.

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! That's certainly a feat to learn Hungarian! I definitely think that language is a great example of the sheer variety of grammatical cases a language can have (and as you said how there's certainly a gradient between cases and adpositions, especially spatial ones)! I also think it's interesting how Latin uses the Ablative/Accusative + prepositions to convey a more nuanced meaning! It's kind of hard as a native English speaker to imagine how that interplay between cases/adpositions happens naturally, but I think I kind of get it... Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!

[@cedriko1662]

I loved it, I know it would be difficult but a video summarizing most of cases in natural languages would be pretty good too :D

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much! That's a great suggestion! I will definitely add it to my recording plan! (I'm currently planning some Old English content for the immediate future, but I hope to go back to conlanging stuff here in a little bit) I love those kinds of ideas because it lets me research for my own constructed languages! I really like obscure cases like the Temporal and Perlative, so I'm excited to delve deep into that kind of grammar...Thanks for the comment! Thanks for watching!

[@modmaker7617]

Polish has 7 cases but ablative isn't one of them

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! I actually didn't know Polish had noun cases! Today I learned! I would have thought if a language had 7 cases at least one of them would be the Ablative! I guess probably prepositions, the Locative case, or the Genitive case would absorb its functions... I might have to do some research on the language! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@tibethatguy]

​@@ParchmentLore Nearly all Slavic languages have noun cases: - Bulgarian and Macedonian only have the nominative and vocative. Often, the vocative isn't counted as a separate case, but as a "form". - Russian has the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and prepositional, although various other minor cases exist, like the vocative, partitive, caritive and locative, each only existing for a handful of nouns. - Slovene and Belorussian have the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental and locative. - Sorbian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian have the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative and vocative. They don't have an ablative case because in the development of Proto-Balto-Slavic, the Proto-Indo-European genitive and ablative merged.

[@madmasseur6422]

​​@@ParchmentLore Every slavic language has between 6 and 7 cases except for Bulgarian, Macedonian and the Torlak dialects of Serbo-Croatian which are part of the South Slavic dialect continuum so they're influenced by both standard Serbo-Croatian/Shtokavian and Bulgarian and so Torlakian dialects have around 1 to 3 cases usually, more than Bulgarian, but less than any other Slavic language.

[@ParchmentLore]

@@madmasseur6422 How interesting! I didn't know that there was such a variety in the number of case endings in the Slavic languages! Thanks for sharing!

[@madmasseur6422]

@@ParchmentLore Always :) but as far aa I'm aware they're the only ones who have such a drastic drop in cases. All the other Slavic languages have around 7, even slavic langauges that are spoken in countries which use languages without cases

[@deithlan]

Woah, this video was actually extremely helpful for me, I didn't know you talked about conlangs too, I love this channel!

[@ParchmentLore]

Ha! Thank you so much! I appreciate that! This video took me, like, weeks to make, so I definitely need to figure out how to streamline the process before I pick up another one like this! I love conlangs and conlanging, so I'll definitely be making more content about them in the future! I'm glad the video helped! I certainly learned a lot from doing the research for it... Thanks for watching!

[@nathanclements2154]

I'd love more videos about more cases! This was really helpful for the conlang I'm building!

[@ParchmentLore]

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm working through my video suggestions as part of a new series, so I'll definitely be sure to add more videos about grammatical cases! I'm really glad the video was helpful for your conlang! I learned a lot from the research for this episode, although now I'm afraid I'll put the Ablative case into all of my conlangs now, lol! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@tbird2013]

Ab-la-tiv, Ab-la-tav

[@ori5315]

It's not quite an ablative case, but I can't help but see similarities with the Māori word "i", which has many similar functions! (For clarification's sake, Māori is primarily a VSO language but the verb is usually prepositioned with a TAM particle except in direct commands) Ka inu au i te wai I drink some water But more literally, "I drink from the water". This use of "i" is perhaps the most common and is frequently used to mark a direct object, however "ki" may be used with some verbs to indicate that the object isn't directly affect by the action as in "ka hiahia au ki te wai" = "I want water" This is also subtly distinct from "ka inu wai au", where "wai" (water) is a noun incorporated into "inu" (to drink), and this sentence refers to drinking water more generally, where the "i te wai" construction denotes some predefined water. Ka haere atu au i te whare I leave the house, more literally "I go away from the house" ("atu" here is a particle also giving a sense of "away") You can change this to "Ka haere atu au ki te whare" to mean "I go out to the house" He teitei ake a Hone i a Ngaio Hone is taller than Ngaio "Ake" here is a particle similar to "atu" but roughly means "upwards" He poto iho a Ngaio i a Hone Ngaio is shorter than Hone "Iho" is basically the opposite of "ake", meaning "downwards" This particle has more interesting uses too! For example, it can be used as a past locative: I runga i te tēpu te ngeru The cat was on the table "runga" here is a locative noun meaning "the top", and "i te tēpu" is "of the table" I Amerika rātou They were in America It is also used before verbs as a generic past tense I hīkoi a Wiremu Wiremu walked I rere iho atu te ēkara i te maunga The eagle flew down from the mountain

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to write this out! This is awesome! I really appreciate this! I know nothing about Maori, so it's really cool to see how the language functions! Everything about the word "i" is really interesting! First, that's neat to see that it functions as sort of a partitive/direct object marker! I know that a lot of times words like "to" become accusative cases (to mark the direct object), but I've never really thought about words like "from" evolving into the same function! So I guess the distinction between the three sentences is: Ka inu au i te wai (There is a predefined set of water and it is being directly affected by the drinking since that would be a physical action that deletes it's supply... You are literally taking "from" the water...) Ka hiahia au ki te wai ("i" is not used because there is no effect on the water whether someone wishes for it or not, so nothing is done to the water...) Ka inu wai au (This is like Nahuatl noun incorporation where the focus is on the verb "inu" instead of the object of the verb? So like "I waterdrink" or "I sleepwalk"? Therefore "i" wouldn't be used since the focus isn't on the direct object?) All of this is super interesting so far! "Atu" seems similar to the Latin "ab" meaning "away from", but I guess the Maori word doesn't have that "from" connotation... I can definitely see the connection between ""I go out to the house" and "I go away to the house"! That's also interesting that the "ake/iho...i" constructions are similar to the Latin Ablative of Comparison! So something like "Hone is tall up from Ngaio" or "Ngaio is short down from Hone"? That's interesting how in Maori the prepositions "upwards/downwards" are added in that construction when in Latin the Ablative alone suffices! I wonder if those words had some sort of emphatic meaning that was eroded until they were required in that construction? Also, I find it cool how "i" is used as a past locative! I don't know of many languages that make the distinction between a past/present locative! Super interesting! I wonder how that came about! I guess its use as a past tense marker is similar to the French "venir de"! So something like "Wiremu (is) from walking" becomes "Wiremu walked"... All if this is incredibly interesting! Thank you so much again for sharing! This inspires me to learn more about Maori! I feel like I can already speak the language lol! :)

[@IkkezzUsedEmber]

"Bane of the latin learner" Except if you got really good at recognizing it (because you thought it was hard and thus wanted to learn it better) over all the other hard constructions to the point it's become your sole hook into piecing together context of a Latin text

[@ParchmentLore]

Ha! Sounds like you're speaking from experience lol! Same process with me! Through researching this video I feel like the Ablative case is the easiest Latin case for me now (except probably the Nominative of course)! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@samuelmarger9031]

Wow! I have to say that this is a peetty detailed introduction. Well done, and thanks for the video!

[@ParchmentLore]

Thanks for the support! I appreciate the stamp of approval from a fellow Latin enthusiast! Thanks for watching!

[@truegemuese]

German has both a colloquial construction similiar to French venir de (kommen von/aus + Dativ case), but it is a lot more restricted and seems to have to involve actual movement*, as well as an archaic/poetic Partitive like de XY (von + Dative case). In general, the German Dative fulfills many roles of the Latin Ablative. Regarding prepositions of location and movement, it's basically a 100% correspondence (Latin in with Acc vs. in with Abl, German in with Acc vs. in with Dat). In Norse and modern Icelandic, this appears to be the case as well. Also, the preposition "mit" (with, by (means of)) also takes the Dative case. *I'd like to explain that, but I just find to many exceptions to any rule I put down, so you have to research that on your own, or answer to this comment, then I may try again.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much for sharing! That's some conlang inspiration! I don't know much about German, but I know in Old English the Dative absorbed a lot of the functions of the historical Ablative too (from what you said Old English is the same as German in terms of the use of Accusative/Dative with prepositions)! Similarly, the Old English "mid" (with) is used with the Dative, but I'm not sure if it means "by means of".... Yeah, exceptions are the bane of the language learner/linguist lol! Thanks again for the comment, and thanks for watching! :)

[@truegemuese]

@@ParchmentLore Further fun fact, since you used that word: bane is cognate to the -fend- in defendere

[@eruditydosaine3351]

I really love your work. This was informational but also really entertaining and comprehensible. Thank you.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much, that means a lot! Those are definitely the qualities I'm trying to aim for with this channel! I'm really glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for the support, and thanks for watching!

[@kurtrosenthal6313]

You should do a video on every case.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you! I'll add that to my video ideas list! I'll see how many I can get done before KZbin isn't a thing anymore lol (assuming you mean a video per case, if not then I think that's a wonderful idea too: A Summary of All Grammatical Cases in 20 Minutes...)! I learned a whole lot about the Ablative case through this video, so I'm definitely up for making a series talking about different grammatical cases! As I said in another comment, this video took a few weeks to make, but I think I've found a way to streamline the process so it'll go faster! Hopefully the video helped you with a conlang/language-learning! Thanks for the suggestion, and thanks for watching!

[@johndavidnew]

Ablative case moves me further away from my ability to understand linguistics😢

[@ParchmentLore]

Ha! It definitely took a lot of research for me to wrap my head around it too! (I pretty much had to look at it from the linguistics side after the "yeah, this case does a lot of different things" information I got from learning Latin!) Thanks for watching!

[@juanguentenguea.gonzalez737]

You are funny. I am going to subscribe you. Thank you for Teaching us the most complex noun case.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you! I really appreciate that! I agree that the Ablative has to be the most difficult noun case! It has so many meanings lol! I'm excited to make more videos like this! Thanks for the support, and thanks for watching!

[@user-ti8sc6up7t]

This is a really cool video, keep up the good work man

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much! This video actually took me a few weeks to make, so I really appreciate the support! It took wayyyy longer than it should have, but I sure learned a lot about the Ablative case! Thanks for watching!

[@daatrox7230]

your latin pronunciation is great

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much! Even though I know the the technicalities of how it's supposed to be pronounced, sometimes I can't get a good take of saying a whole sentence without issue lol... I'm glad you thought it was great! Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it! Thanks for watching!

[@akashashen]

Warning: Extremely Offtopic (probably doesn't include mobile users) First out of the way, I love the art choice for the video. The video overall is awesome, and just subscribed. OFFTOPIC: Was the fuzziness created by the compression used on the thumbnail LOOK 3D? There was another video where I asked the group, and ended up misunderstood, but it seems to relate to /apparent/ out-of-focus-like areas around an apparent in-focus-like otherwise unaffected area. I saw a video by 'Silly Songs with Lehrer', "Tom Lehrer talks about Bob & Ray", where Lehrer sitting in the back appears in focus with Bob in front strangely out of focus. I say strangely, as it's not obvious it's out of focus at fullscreen; however, subtle noisiness of an actual structure does multiply with the layers of correction for each generation of a compressed image. If that is the case, the field of focus is very tight around Tom. Regardless, I was just wondering if anyone had this or similar 3D-like effect experience in images with data loss (compression, resizing, et c.)

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much for subscribing! I really appreciate the support! I definitely try to keep kind of a cohesive art style, but I'm hoping to make things more interesting in subsequent videos! I'm not a super technical person, so I apologize if I misunderstood, but are you talking about the thumbnail looking sort of 3D through the blurry/fuzziness in the middle? One possibility is that I added a lot of effects to the text in Photoshop (and dodged the background behind the text to make it stand out more), and didn't add as many effects to the arrows... Maybe that's the cause for the fuzzy-3D look in the blurrier region but a more 2d look in the outskirts of the picture? I don't think I compressed the image any more than usual, but like I said I'm certainly no digital art genius lol! I'm more suited for conlangs and linguistics! I feel like I kind of get what you mean, but I've stared at that thing for too long when I was making it and now it's kind of hard to look at it from a different point of view! However, I just checked, and I will say it does look different on mobile... I think I see what you mean! If you had any more questions I'd definitely be happy to answer them! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@larslindgren3846]

I was expecting a technical discussion about some sort of ablative heath shield like on a space capsule that was called "the ablative case" Not a grammar lesson.

[@user-yh1nm1vy3i]

Subscribing and leaving a comment so when you have million subs I can say I was here before

[@ParchmentLore]

That means a lot! Thank you so much! When I have a million subs, I'll remember this comment lol... Thanks for the inspiration! Made my day!

[@LinguaPhiliax]

The Ablative case - Where does it come from?!

[@ParchmentLore]

Where is it going?!??!?! All these questions and MORE will be answered in TODAY'S video!!!! :)

[@sylv256]

Why did you have to choose the worst font?

[@AmyThePuddytat]

You need to work on those vowel quantities.

[@dionnix]

the only reason i properly understand ablative is because my native language (albanian) uses it as its fifth case

[@ParchmentLore]

Awesome! I wanted to delve into the uses of the case in Albanian (and a little bit more in Turkish), but I was running out of time and I felt that they had most of the same uses as in Latin/Finnish... Are there any interesting ways the Ablative case is used in Albanian? I'm not familiar with the language! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@dionnix]

@@ParchmentLore Albanian generally uses the Dative form of a noun and the preposition "prej" (meaning from), like, qyteti (city): qyteti (nominative) qytetit (dative) prej qytetit (ablative) Nothing I can tell that's truly unique about Albanian ablative.

[@ParchmentLore]

​@@dionnix Ah, I see! Well, that's interesting! Thanks for sharing! From some basic research I guess it's basically identical to the Dative except for when the noun is in the indefinite plural, so it makes sense that it might need some backup from a preposition like "prej" in order to not be too ambiguous I guess! Thanks for the conlang inspiration, and thanks for the comment!

[@blechtic]

"The ablah case", "the ablada case", "the abblediv case", ... Have you tried talking slower?

[@mariiris1403]

Thank you! I tried listen with the speed 0.75, but it feels too overly stressed, then. Please leave in natural breathing pauses. It makes it easier to "digest".

[@mariiris1403]

Thank you! Slower, and with natural breathing pauses, please!

[@blechtic]

@@mariiris1403 Those examples just rush by without any time to take them in or understand. It makes the whole video performative and that's not something I waste my time on.

[@mariiris1403]

@@blechtic Yes, I agree.