Pluralablative

Pluralablative is a linguistic term describing a form that simultaneously encodes plurality (numbers) and the ablative case (common meanings like source, origin, or movement away). In languages with both case systems and number marking, a pluralablative form would signal “from multiple items” or “out from among many.”

Morphologically, pluralablative can be realized in different ways. It may appear as a single inflection that fuses plural and ablative meaning, or as a sequence of separate plural and ablative markers attached to a noun, pronoun, or determiner. The exact realization is language-specific; some languages fuse the features, others treat them as distinct affixes or clitics.

Typologically, plural-ablative constructions are more likely in languages with rich case systems or highly agglutinative or polysynthetic morphology. In such languages, multiple grammatical categories—number and case—often combine within a single word or across closely linked morphemes. In other analyses, what is described as a pluralablative might be treated as an ablative plural rather than as a distinct category, depending on the theoretical framework.

Semantics and use of pluralablative are primarily to express source, origin, or movement away from multiple referents. It can indicate from where many items originate, or from among a group of entities. The existence and analysis of a pluralablative form are not universal and vary with language, making it a topic mainly of typological or descriptive study rather than a universal grammatical category. See also ablative case and plural number.