The Latin Ablative Case and Its Many Uses

The ablative covers by, with, from, in and at. It is not vague, it is crowded: Latin's ancestor had three cases here, the true ablative (from), the instrumental (with, by) and the locative (where, when), and they fused into one set of endings. The jobs did not fuse, so sort every ablative into its family.

Three families, one rule to burn in: a tool takes a bare ablative, a person takes ab, a companion takes cum.

The forms, in one place

The first-declension terra looks exactly like the nominative; only vowel length, which nobody wrote down, tells them apart, so context does the work. Every plural ends in -is or -bus, which makes an ablative plural easy to spot, though the same forms are also the dative plural.

From: separation and source

The first family says where something comes from, or what it is apart from. A preposition usually comes with it:

Names of towns, and domus (home), take no preposition at all:

• Roma venit. - He came from Rome.
• Domo exiit. - He left home.

That is not sloppiness: it is the older pattern, surviving in the words people used most.

With and by: means, agent, manner and company

This is where English speakers lose marks, because English says with or by for four different things and Latin does not.

Means never takes a preposition:

• Oculis videmus, manibus opus facimus. - We see with our eyes; we do the work with our hands.

Manner says how something is done. Cum is always safe, and once an adjective is attached it becomes optional, often tucked between adjective and noun:

• cum cura - with care
• magna cum laude or magna laude - with great praise

Company normally keeps cum, and with the personal pronouns it sticks to the end:

• Dominus tecum. - The Lord is with you. (the Ave Maria)

Where and when: place and time

Place where takes in with the ablative. The same preposition with the accusative means into, so the case alone says whether you are there or on your way:

12

1. 1in villam
2. 2in villa

In villam (accusative): on his way into the house. In villa (ablative): in the house, already there.

• In urbe manet. - He stays in the city.
• In urbem venit. - He came into the city.

Names of towns and small islands take no preposition. First- and second-declension singulars keep an old locative (Romae, at Rome; domi, at home); the rest use a bare ablative (Athenis, at Athens; Carthagine, at Carthage).

Time takes no preposition either. A point in time is time when; a span inside which something happens is time within which:

The last row is the trap: how long something lasted is not an ablative job at all but the accusative. English in three days is ambiguous; Latin tribus diebus means within that span, and post tres dies means after it.

The extras that earn their keep

A handful more ablatives with no preposition. Two of them, comparison and degree of difference, have their own page: comparatives and superlatives.

Caesar's first paragraph has an ablative of respect, three in a row:

• Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. - These all differ from one another in language, customs and laws. (Caesar, Gallic War 1.1)

Five verbs take the ablative as their object. Utor (I use) is the one you will meet, where English has a direct object:

• Gladio utitur. - He uses a sword.

Fruor (enjoy), fungor (perform), potior (take possession of) and vescor (feed on) do the same.

The prepositions, settled

Always ablative:

Either case, and the case is the meaning:

Everything else common takes the accusative:

How to work one out

1. Is there a preposition? It has already chosen the case, and its meaning tells you the family.
2. No preposition, and the noun is a thing? Almost certainly means.
3. A time word? Time when, or time within which.
4. A comparative nearby? Comparison.
5. Still stuck? Try by, with and from in that order and keep the one that makes sense.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Learn the first table by family: from, with or by, where or when.
2. Run the drill below, deciding tool, person or companion before you answer.
3. Then meet comparatives and superlatives, where the ablative also means than. The ablative absolute (urbe capta, the city having been taken) needs participles, so it waits until you have them.