What is an ablative absolute and how to translate them

An ablative absolute is a clause that is grammatically separate from the main sentence and can be translated four ways:Temporal - this tells you the action in the ablative absolute happened "when", "while" or "after" something else happenedCausal - this tells you the action in the main clause happened "because" or "since" the action in the ablative absolute clause happenedConcessive - this tells you that something happened "despite" or "although" the action in the ablative absolute clause happenedConditional - this tells you that something would happen "if" the action in the ablative absolute happenedThe ablative absolute can be constructed two ways:A noun construction: "me custode" - "while I was a guard" - this is usually as a result of the verb esse being omitted since it has no present participleA noun + participle construction:Both the noun and the participle must have ablative endings and the participle must agree with the noun in gender, number and case - but not necessarily in ending.Side note Two very important letters to look out for in the temporal noun + participle construction (which is the most common) are "nt":"sole occidente" - the use of a present participle means that we have to translate it as "while the sun was setting" and we can spot this by the "nt" in the participle"nave deligata" - the use of a perfect participle here means we have to translate it as "when the ship had been tied up"