Elativeabessive

Elativeabessive is a term used in linguistic typology to denote a hypothetical grammatical category that would encode both elative meaning (out of, from a source) and abessive meaning (without) in a single morphological marking. The elative case marks motion away from a reference point, while the abessive marks the absence of an accompanying object or partner. A true elativeabessive would fuse these meanings into one form, or present them as a single syntactic relation, rather than as separate elative and abessive markers.

Attestation for a dedicated elativeabessive case is not established in the standard reference grammars of well-documented languages. In practice, languages that have both elative and abessive marking typically express the combination through a sequence of markers (elative plus abessive) or via periphrastic constructions using adpositions or particles. Some theoretical discussions treat elativeabessive as a possible diachronic fusion: two morphemes coalescing into a single fused marker. Others view it as a conceptual tool for comparing case systems rather than an independently attested category.

Morphology and syntax of an elativeabessive would depend on the language; possible realizations include a fused suffix attached to noun phrases, a fused clitic on the verb, or a periphrastic construction with a fixed order of markers. The realization would influence agreement, cross-reference, and argument structure.

Illustrative example (hypothetical): in a hypothetical language, a single elativeabessive morpheme attached to a noun could express “from without” in contexts where both source and absence matter. Actual instances are scarce and primarily of theoretical interest.

See also: elative, abessive, case fusion, grammaticalization, linguistic typology.