Филологические науки/3.Теоретические и
методологические проблемы исследования языка
Л.О.Попова, Г.К. Кулжанбекова
Таразский инновационно-гуманитарный университет, Казахстан
The
category of noun in Modern English
The noun is a word expressing
substance in the widest sense of the word. In the concept of substance we
include not only names of living beings (e.g. boy, girl, bird) and lifeless
things (e.g. table, chair, book), but also names of abstract notions, i.e.
qualities, slates, actions (kindness, strength, sleep, fear, conversation,
fight), abstracted from their bearers. In speech these types of nouns are
treated in different ways, so one, who does not know ways of treatment, can
make mistakes in his speech.
The noun has morphological categories of number and
case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.
The category of number
The grammatical category of number is the linguistic
representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is
realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form :: the
singular form.
There are different approaches to defining the
category of number. Thus, some scholars believe that the category of number in
English is restricted in its realization because of the dependent implicit
grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The category of number is
realized only within subclass of countable nouns, i.e. nouns having numeric
(discrete) structure.
Uncountable nouns have no category of number, for they
have quantitative (indiscrete) structure. Two classes of uncountables can be
distinguished: singularia tantum (only singular) and pluralia tantum (only
plural). M. Blokh, however, does not exclude the singularia tantum subclass
from the category of number. He calls such forms absolute singular forms
comparable to the ‘common’ singular of countable nouns.
This definition is powerful because it covers nearly
all nouns while the traditional definition excludes many words.
The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with
the notional quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one
object while the plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of
several parts. The singular form may denote:
a) oneness (individual separate object – a cat);
b) generalization (the meaning of the whole class –
The cat is a domestic animal);
c) indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness
- money, milk).
The plural form may denote:
a) the existence of several objects (cats);
b) the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность,
pluralia tantum, jeans).
To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three
groups:
1. The nouns in which the opposition of explicit
discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed: cat::cats;
2. The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed
explicitly but is revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the
context. There are two groups here:
A. Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of
nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;
B. Pluralia tantum.
It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of
sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.
3. The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number
opposition here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and
syntactically in the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass. Look! The
sheep are eating grass.
The category of case
In present-day linguistics case is used in two senses:
1) semantic, or logic, and 2) syntactic.
The semantic case concept was developed by C. J.
Fillmore in the late 1960s. Ch. Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic
classification of cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of
the sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to different relations to nouns.
There are 6 cases:
1. Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;
2. Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John
used the key to open thedoor;
3. Dative Case (D) John believed that he would win
(the case of the animate being affected by the state of action identified by
the verb);
4. Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged (the result
of the action or state identified by the verb);
5. Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;
6. Objective case (O) John stole the book.
H. Sweet’s views (1925) rest on the syntactic
conception of case: case to him is a syntactic relation that can be realized
syntactically or morphologically. He speaks of inflected and non-inflected
cases (the genitive vs. the common case).
Non-inflected cases, according to the scholar, are equivalent
to the nominative, vocative, accusative, and dative of inflected languages.The
category of case correlates with the objective category of possession. The case
category in English is realized through the opposition: The Common Case :: The
Possessive Case (sister :: sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term
“genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive case” because the meanings
rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. The scope of
meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following:
1. Possessive Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a
father,
2. Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The
doctor has arrived,
3. Objective Genitive : The man’s release – The man
was released,
4. Genitive of origin: the boy’s story – the boy told
the story,
5. Descriptive Genitive: children’s books – books for
children
6. Genitive of measure and partitive genitive: a
mile’s distance, a day’s trip
7. Appositive genitive: the city of London.
To avoid confusion with the plural, the marker of the
genitive case is represented in written form with an apostrophe. This fact
makes possible disengagement of –`s form from the noun to which it properly
belongs. E.g.: The man I saw yesterday’s son, where -`s is appended to the
whole group (the so-called group genitive). It may even follow a word which
normally does not possess such a formant, as in somebody else’s book.
There is no universal point of view as to the case
system in English.
Different scholars stick to a different number of
cases.
1. There are two cases. (limited case theory) The
Common one and The Genitive;
2. There are no cases at all, the form `s is optional
because the same relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s
arrival – the arrival of the doctor;
3. There are three cases: the Nominative, the
Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of objective pronouns me, him,
whom;
4. The theory of positional cases.
5. The theory of prepositional cases.
We adhere to the view that English does possess the
category of case, which is represented by the opposition of the two forms - the
genitive vs. the non - genitive, or the common. The marked member of the
opposition is the genitive and the unmarked the common: both members express a
relation - the genitive expresses a specific relation (the relation of
possession in the wide meaning of the word) while the common case expresses a
wide range of relations including the relation of possession, e.g. Kennedy’s
house vs. the Kennedy house. While recognizing the existence of the genitive
case, we must say that the English genitive is not a classical case. Its
peculiarities are:
1) the inflection -‘s is but loosely connected with
the noun (e.g. the Queen of England’s daughter; the man I met yesterday’s son);
2) genitive constructions are paralleled by
corresponding prepositional constructions (e.g. Shakespeare’s works vs. the
works of Shakespeare);
3) the use of the genitive is mainly limited to nouns
denoting living beings;
4) the inflection -‘s is used both in the singular and
in the plural (e.g. a boy’s bicycle vs. the boys’ bicycles), which is not
typical of case inflexions.
Литература:
1. B. Ilyish, The Structure of Modern
English.
2. V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova,
L.L. Iofik.» Modern English language» (Theoretical course grammar) Moscow,
1956 y.
3.
М.М. Галииская. «Иностранные языки в высшей школе», вып. 3, М., 1964.
4.
Г.Н. Воронцова. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М., 1960
5. O. Jespersen. Essentials of English
Grammar. N.Y., 1938
6.
Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая
грамматика современного английского языка. - М., 1981. - 285 c.
7. Ch. Barber. Linguistic change in
Present-Day English. Edinburgh, 1964
8. World Book Encyclopedia Vol.1 NY. 1993
pp.298-299