The category of case

The category of case is the system of oppositions showing the relations of the noun to other words in a sentence. Opinions differ as to the existence and number of cases in the system of English nouns. There are three main approaches to the problem:

1. the English noun has two cases;

2. the English noun has more than two cases (Y.Curme, M.Deutschbein);

3. the English noun has no cases at all (prof. Vorontsova, prof. Mukhin).

The most usual view is that the English noun has two cases – common and genitive (or possessive). So, the case opposition is represented by two members: boy//boy’s. The genitive case is the marked member of the opposition, the common case is the unmarked one.

Text-books on practical grammar usually say that the possibility of forming the genitive is limited to certain lexical groups of nouns, namely those denoting living beings, time and distance and a few others.

It should be noted that these limitations are not of absolute but probabilistic characters. Language facts show that nouns denoting lifeless things and abstract notions can also be used in genitive case. Examples: the room’s windows, the book’s page, the monument’s history, the game’s laws, the theory’s statements, the verb’s subject.

N.M. Rayevska points out that in present day English one can trace “the spreading of the ‘s-genitive…at the expense of the of-phrase”.

№5

The verb. The category of aspect

Taking into account the 3 principles of classifications of parts of speech suggested by accad. Shcherba, we may define the verb as a part of speech characterized by the following features:

1. Meaning: action or state taken as a time process.

2. Form: it has the categories of tense, aspect, correlation, mood, voice, person and number.

3. Function: a) combinability with certain kinds of words: with nouns and adverbs; occasionally with adjectives (married young); b) in a sentence a verb (in its finite forms) is always the predicate or part of it.

The category of aspect shows the manner in which the action is presented. It shows whether the action is simply stated or taken in its progress. The members of the aspect opposition are the non-continuous form and the continuous form:

Works//is working

Has worked//has been working

To work//to be working

The problem of aspect is controversial in English grammar. There are different approaches to the English grammar.

1. Aspect is not recognized as a category of Modern English grammar.

2. Aspect is blended with tense and regarded as an inalienable part of the tense aspect system.

3. Aspect and tense are recognized as two distinct grammatical categories.

There is no direct correspondence between English and Slavonic aspects. On the one hand the English common aspect may correspond not only to the Slavonic perfective but also to the Slavonic imperfective aspect. Thus, “he wrote” may correspond to both “написав” and “писав”. On the other hand, the Slavonic imperfective aspect may correspond not only to the continuous but also to the common aspect. Thus, “писав” may correspond to both “was writing” and “wrote”.