11) Категория числа существительного

The category of number marks the number of objects named by the noun. The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun. The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural. The singular may be used not only with the idea of singularity, but with the idea of plurality.

The plural with the shade of expressiveness (cases of stylistic marking of nouns) – the snows of the Arctic, the sands of the desert.

Standard nouns: formal mark being the suffix -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz ] as presented in the forms dog — dogs, clock — clocks, box — boxes. The productive formal mark correlates with the absence of the number suffix in the singular form of the noun. The semantic content of the unmarked form, as has been shown above, enables the grammarians to speak of the zero-suffix of the singular in English.

The other, non-productive ways of expressing the number opposition are vowel interchange in several relict forms (man — men, woman — women, tooth — teeth, etc.), (the result of palatal mutation)

the archaic suffix -(e)n supported by phonemic interchange in a couple of other relict forms (ox — oxen, child — children, cow — kine, brother — brethren),

the correlation of individual singular and plural suffixes in a limited number of borrowed nouns (formula — formulae, phenomenon — phenomena, alumnus— alumni, etc.). (from Latin and Greek)

In some cases the plural form of the noun is homonymous with the singular form (sheep, deer, fish, etc.). – the lexicalization of the grammatical affix

Besides there are nouns which have some peculiarities connected with the case of number:

1) uncountable nouns (singularia tantum) – names of material, substance, abstract notions, a special list of nouns which grammatically function as non countable (могут получить множ число с изменение значения work-works)

2) used only in the plural (pluralia tantum) – denoting objects consisting of two similar equal parts, a special list of nouns (diseases, abnormal states of the body and mind; rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and abstract).

3) nouns of multitude (police, cattle, people) used in the singular but denote multitude that’s why the verb is used in the plural.

4) collective nouns (family) – both in singular and plural (collective nouns with a singular verb, and as nouns of multitude).

12) Категория падежа существительного

According to the school tradition we distinguish 2 cases: the common and the possessive cases (pronouns – nominative and objective). The Common case has a zero marker and the possessive has ‘s.

Absolute possessive – independent from the noun (the use of the possessive case without the noun it refers to): 1) with the names of the owners (at my brother’s) 2) with the name of the shops, companies 3) in the function of the subject, predicate, object – in the place of the whole group (possessive + noun). My brother’s life was happy – My brother’s was a happy life (more emotional). Predicate (именная часть составного именного сказуемого) – It’s my brother’s. Object – Don’t take my pen, take my brother’s.

Group possessive – the use of the marker of the possessive case with a word group: 1) 1 object belongs to 2 or more owners (Ann and Jane’s room) 2) a person or an object is denoted by a word group (King of England’s daughter).

The relationship between the noun in possessive case and the noun it refers to: possession (my mother’s hat), belonging (the roof of the house), source and authorship (the commander’s order, Pushkin’s book), subjective relations (the artist’s work, my brother’s coming), objective relations (my brother’s dismissal). The possession can have a descriptive meaning – a children’s book (детская книга).

The case is a matter of a long discussion, there are several opinions: 1) one of them is that there are no cases in English 2) the noun has 2 cases 3) there are more than 2 cases.

1) They consider the apostrophe ‘s to be sort of an aglutinative affix with a very narrow meaning, which is treated as that of possession. Доводы: 1) the ‘s is used in the case of the group possessive 2) the ‘s can be added also to an adverb (yesterday’s evening). There is a counter argument – we deal with the conversion.

2) a matter of tradition which goes back to the times of prescriptive grammars (Johnson and Buckler distinguished 2 cases, Lowth – 2 case system)

3) before we decide the problem we should introduce the definition of the case 1) it is a form of a nominal part of the speech which has a special morphological marker which is a separable part of the word and marks the relations of this particular noun to other parts of the speech.

Another approach – a case is a semantic category which reflects the relationship between this particular noun and the other elements of the sentence. As to the way it may be expressed it is of no importance (morphologically, lexically and even syntatically through the position of the noun in question).

We may find the Accusative case if the noun immediately follows the verb. In English there are some prepositions which in certain instances function to express case relations: of (the roof of the house) – the genitive case relations; with (with a knife) – the instrumental case relation; by (was done by me brother) – instrumental; to (to his wife)

6 case system is worked out by Charles Filmore. He takes into account semantic part of the noun, which is connected with the function and meaning (generative semantics)

6 cases: agentive (сущ в позиции подлежащего как деятеля) – John opened the door

Objective – John opened the door. The door was opened by John. (прямое дополнение)

Instrumental – John opened the door with the key = the key opened the door

Locative – Chicago is windy. It is windy in Chicago. (обстоятельство места).