Ablativity

Whilst in Italy the humanists were busily engaged in restoring the antique conception of grammar, in the north of France, in England and in Germany, it had sunk into complete subjection to logic. The following is a definition of the function of the Pronoun from a grammar for beginners printed in 1499. “ Pronomen…significat substantiam seu entitatem sub modo conceptus intrinseco permanentis seu habitus et quietis sub determinate apprehensionis formalitate¹.” Or we may illustrate the mediaevalist idea from the discussions upon the Absolute case. It was not enough for the scholar to know that Latin usage constructed this in the ablative : the special “ ablativity ” of the “ absolute ” concept² was really what interested the grammarian. In the same way the usages of the participle, of the genitive of possession, of the passive voice, were of far less concern than their modi significandi or underlying dialectic conceptions.

5.2. French was found to present an extreme situation. To express the three concepts of reversativity, ablativity, and privativity, it has only one morpheme, /de, dez/ which forms four equally strong types of verbs: défaire, démilitariser (R), dépanner (A), and … (P).