2) The Problem of the Category of Case.

The problem of the category of case is one of the most disputable ones in English grammar. All the existing theories concerning this problem can be subdivided into 3 principal groups:

1. the traditional view that there are 2 cases within English nouns: common or possessive (or genitive);

2. the number of cases is more than two;

3. English nouns have no morphological category of case.

The difference of opinions can be explained by different approaches to treating this category. Case is a morphological category of the noun which expresses relations between the object named by this noun and some other objects or characteristics named by some other nouns or gerunds. These relations should be expressed by the form of the noun if it is a morphological category.

Hence, when treating this category, the opposition of inflected and non-inflected forms of the noun is employed.

The inflected form is the marked member of the opposition and in English it is called the possessive, or genitive, case. The non-inflected form is the unmarked member of the opposition and it is called the common case: boy/ boy’s. That is the traditional treatment of the category of case with English nouns.

The authors of the 2^nd opinion proceed mainly from the plane of content ignoring the peculiarities of the plane of expression and speak of more than 2 cases, beginning with four cases (Deutschbein’s opinion) up to the indefinite number of cases (Meshchaninov).

Today many scholars really speak of different cases but they are semantic but not morphological and can be identified mostly on the syntactic level, that is the structure of phrases or sentences. If we take the theories of “more-than-two cases” we can see that on the plane of expression they are prepositional phrases or they are expresses by word-order.

e.g. to the boy – the dative case;

the pen of the boy = the boy’s pen – the genitive case;

with the pen – the instrumental case;

in the garden – the locative case.

Such language units are not morphological but syntactic and hence the cases, mentioned above, are not morphological but semantico-syntactic.

Moreover, the present-day investigations of the so-called possessive, or genitive, case show that this “case” can render various meanings:

2. meanings of possession (the brother’s room);

3. integral relations (the hotel’s hall);

4. agent-action relations: it means that the noun names the doer of the action (Peter’s arrival);

5. patient-action relations: the noun names the action acted upon (the champion’s defeat – the champion was defeated);

6. destination relations (children’s book (for children));

7. temporal relations (today’s newspaper);

8. quantitative relations (an hour’s walk);

9. interpersonal relations (Tom’s friend).

So the opposition like boy/ boy’s does not necessarily express the meaning of possession and so it can hardly be employed to justify the existence of the morphological category of case with English nouns.

The 3^rd opinion is expressed in the works of professors Vorontsova, Mukhin, Ilyish, Boris Alex and others.

The essence of these theories lies in the fact that they deny the existence of the morphological category of case with English nouns.

First the existence of this category of English nouns was doubted in the works of Vorontsova and Mukhin. They put forward the idea that /’s/ is not a regular morphological inflexion, because it can modify not only single nouns but also whole syntactic word groups.

It is necessary to say that this peculiarity was noticed even earlier by Henry Sweet, though it did not received a required attention there.

A thorough investigation of the formant /’s/ was carried out by professors Ivanova and Ilyish. Their theory seems to be most argumented and objective when presenting the language reality of modern English. The formant /’s/ has got a special term – “the possessive”.

The following arguments can be given in favour of rejecting the morphological category of case with English nouns:

1) the formant /’s/ functions within rather a limited sphere, what is not characteristic of case forms of nouns in any language. These limitations can be formulated thus:

a) the usage of the possessive is limited lexically. It means that it is used mostly with nouns, denoting living beings and nouns denoting time, measure, weight (an hour’s walk). Occasionally it can be used with nouns naming inanimate objects to stress some individual characteristic of this object (the car’s wheel meaning “the wheel of this very car”, when we say “a car wheel” we mean a wheel of any car).

b) the possessive is restricted positionally as it is always used with nouns in the attributive prepositional function, unless it represents a noun-phrase.

Tom’s friend

A friend of Tom’s.

The noun modified by the possessive can be placed in postposition to the head noun, if the latter is used with a determiner, expressed by an article or a demonstrative pronoun.

A book of Tom’s

This book of Tom’s.

c) due to the homonymy of forms like boys, boy’s, boys’. The possessive is practically not distinguished in the plural or the difference between the plural and the possessive happens to be reduced. We can’t deny that in most cases it is really so, but in a number of cases due to the context the possessive and the plural can be differentiated.

His mother’s voice – singular with the possessive;

The boys’ heads – plural with the possessive;

The boys are out – plural.

2) The possessive can be used with language unit larger than a word. Besides, it can modify not only nouns.

Sb else’s(a pronoun) mistake.

Tom and Mary’s (phrase) parents.

Today’s (adverb) newspaper.

The man I saw yesterday’s (phrase) son.

If /’s/ were a morphological inflexion of case, then it couldn’t be separated from the noun and could hardly be joined to some other part of speech.

Thus /’s/ is hardly a morphological inflexion.

3) As we have already said, the only syntactic function of the noun modified by the possessive is that of an attribute and so the functioning of the possessive is limited to an attributive noun-phrase but in this position and function we can also find a noun not modified by the possessive: a school garden, a metro station.

The difference between the phrases with the possessive and without it is of semantic mature: the noun modified by the possessive names some individual characteristic of the object named by the head noun, while the noun without the possessive names some generalized characteristic of the object named by the head noun.

Hence, proper names used in the position without the possessive require a general meaning.

Maugham’s novel = belongs to Maugham;

The Maugham manner = a generalized characteristic;

Moscow’s street = located in Moscow;

Moscow street = a generalized characteristic;

Trade-union’s action = of a particular one;

A trade union action = of any trade union.

Taking into consideration this difference, we can make a conclusion that a noun modified by the possessive and a bare noun can be opposed only within the narrow frames of an attributive noun-phrase. Beyond such phrases they are no longer opposed on the basis of the meaning in question. So it seems that these contextually opposed units express not the category of case, but a much narrower category which professor Ivanova suggests calling the category of nominal characteristic. This category belongs not to morphology, but to syntax because it can be distinguished only on the syntactic phrase level.

Yet, there still exists the problem where to refer /’s/ to. If /’s/ can modify units larger than a word, then it has undergone the process of syntaxation and has become a syntactic element, not morphological one, something like a preposition. Should we traditionally treat it as a morphological case inflexion, then we’ll have to admit that morphology includes units larger than a word what we don’t do with the exception of analytical verb-forms.

Thus, we can make a conclusion that modern English nouns have no morphological category of case and units like “the boy’s” should be treated as a noun modified by the possessive.