It is possible. You can try this yourself. On CDH, I have a file extn\t.txt
[cloudera@quickstart ~]$ pwd
/home/cloudera
[cloudera@quickstart ~]$ cat extn/t.txt
something
[cloudera@quickstart ~]$
I can now create an external table to access this file as follows
create external table tbl(line string)
location 'file:///home/cloudera/extn'
Describe table
INFO : OK
+-----------+------------+----------+--+
| col_name | data_type | comment |
+-----------+------------+----------+--+
| line | string | |
+-----------+------------+----------+--+
1 row selected (0.152 seconds)
0: jdbc:hive2://localhost:10000>
Select
INFO : OK
+------------+--+
| tbl.line |
+------------+--+
| something |
+------------+--+
1 row selected (0.134 seconds)
0: jdbc:hive2://localhost:10000>
Describe formatted
+-------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+--+
| col_name | data_type | comment |
+-------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+--+
| # col_name | data_type | comment |
| | NULL | NULL |
| line | string | |
| | NULL | NULL |
| # Detailed Table Information | NULL | NULL |
| Database: | default | NULL |
| Owner: | cloudera | NULL |
| CreateTime: | Tue Feb 20 12:49:25 PST 2018 | NULL |
| LastAccessTime: | UNKNOWN | NULL |
| Protect Mode: | None | NULL |
| Retention: | 0 | NULL |
| Location: | file:/home/cloudera/extn | NULL |
| Table Type: | EXTERNAL_TABLE | NULL |
| Table Parameters: | NULL | NULL |
| | COLUMN_STATS_ACCURATE | false |
| | EXTERNAL | TRUE |
| | numFiles | 0 |
| | numRows | -1 |
| | rawDataSize | -1 |
| | totalSize | 0 |
| | transient_lastDdlTime | 1519159765 |
| | NULL | NULL |
| # Storage Information | NULL | NULL |
| SerDe Library: | org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.lazy.LazySimpleSerDe | NULL |
| InputFormat: | org.apache.hadoop.mapred.TextInputFormat | NULL |
| OutputFormat: | org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.HiveIgnoreKeyTextOutputFormat | NULL |
| Compressed: | No | NULL |
| Num Buckets: | -1 | NULL |
| Bucket Columns: | [] | NULL |
| Sort Columns: | [] | NULL |
| Storage Desc Params: | NULL | NULL |
| | serialization.format | 1 |
+-------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
Load data is different. Please check this External Table vs Load Data