The category of case

Case is the immanent morphological category of the noun, showing the relations of the object to other objects and phenomena.

This category is expressed in English by the opposition of the form in -'s [z, s, iz] usually called the possessive case, or more traditionally, the genitive case, to the unmarked form of the noun, usually called the “common” case.

The apostrophy serves to distinguish in writing the singular noun in the genitive case from the plural noun in the common case.

The genitive of the most of plural nouns remains phonetically unexpressed: the few exceptions concern only some of the irregular plurals: e.g. the actresses' dresses, the children's room.

But the common form is also capable of rendering the genitive semantics, e.g. the leg of the table. So there is no wonder that in the course of linguistic investigation the category of case in Engish has become one of the problems of theoretical discussion.

Four special views should be considered in the analysis of this problem.

1) The Theory of Positional Cases

Linguistic formulations of the theory may be found in the works of Deutschbein and other scholars. In accord with the theory of positional cases the unchangable forms of the noun may express different cases due to the functional positions occupied by the noun in the sentence.

Thus, the English noun, on the analogy of classical Latin grammar, would distinguish, besides the inflexional genitive case, also the non-inflexional, i.e. purely positional cases: nominative, vocative, dative and accusative.

E.g. the nominative case: The letter is here. (subject to a verb)

the vocative case: (address) Are you ready, students?

the dative case: (indirect object to a verb) She gave the students some books.

the accusative case: (direct object and also object to a preposition) The books were given by the teacher.

The case form is the morphological form of the noun, but the positional case theory substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of the part of speech.

2) The Theory of Prepositional Cases

It is also connected with the old school grammar teaching. According to it, combinations of nouns with prepositions on some object and attributive word-groups should be understood as morphological case forms. Here belong the dative case (to + noun, for + noun) and the genitive case (of + noun).

Curme calls these prepositions “nflexional prepositions”, i.e. morphemes. It should follow from this that only the of-, to-, and for- phrases, but also all the other prepositional phrases in English must be regarded as “analytical cases”. As a result, the total number of such cases would become indefinitely large (Ilyish).

3) The Limited Case Theory

It is most broadly accepted among linguists at present. It was formulated by Sweet, Jespersen and was developed by Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov. It is based on the opposition of the possessive or genitive form as the strong member and the common, or “non-genitive” from as the weak member.

It is shown in full with animate nouns, and is restricted with inanimate nouns.

4) Postpositional Theory (No-Case Theory)

Thus view insists that the English noun has completely lost the category of case in the course of its historical development. The view is advanced by G.N. Vorontsova.

First, the postpositional element -'s is loosely connected with the noun, as it is used not only with single nouns, but also with whole word-groups. E.g. Somebody else's daughter. The blonde I had been dancing with's name was Bernice (Salinger). The girl in my class's mother.

Second, the 's can be attached to few nouns denoting living beings, in other cases the parallel prepositional construction is used.

Opposing this theory linguists consider the previous examples stylistically marked, the more self-dependent the construction with the case-sign 's, the stronger the stylistic colouring. Besides, according to statistical observation, the 's sign is attached to individual nouns in 96 percent of its textual occurrences.

Though the main meaning of the genitive case is possession, it undergoes modifications depending on the lexical meaning of the noun:

John's house - John has a house;

John's happiness - John is happy;

John's smile - John is smiling.

The meaning of possession is limited to nouns denoting animate things while the genitive of the nouns denoting lifeless things is metaphoric. E.g. the river's brink.

Nouns denting units of distance and time in the Genitive case do not express possession at all: a month's leave, a mile's distance.

Many grammarians find the Genitive polysemantic as it expresses:

1. possession: John's car - John has an car;

2. subject of the action: Mary's dream - Mary has a dream, or Mary dreams;

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the possessive genitive and the subjective genitive.

3. Adverbial Genitive: Two hour's work – X works for two hours;

4. Objective Genitive: John's surprise - John was surprised or X surprised John.

5. Destination Genitive: children's room - room for children.

In modern English the Genitive and the of-phrase are synonyms and that's why they can be used side by side - the so called double genitive: e.g. a picture of grandfather's.

The genitive can be absolute (independent) and conjoint (dependent). The dependent genitive precedes the head-word and may be of two kinds:

1) The specific genitive (indicating the owner, the doer, bearer of state): uncle's car, my sister's illness. It can be replaced by the -of-phrase (except proper names). The minister's speech - the speech of the Minister; Mary's table.

2) The classifying genitive (indicating quality of the class of similar objects): sheep's eyes, summer's day, a doll's face, mother's care. This genitive cannot be replaced by the of - phrase, but it may easily become a set-phrase.