The absolute singular is characteristic of the names of abstract notions (peace, love, joy, courage, friendship, etc.), the names of the branches of professional activity (chemistry, architecture, mathematics, linguistics, etc.), the names of mass materials (water, snow, steel, hair, etc.), the names of collective inanimate objects (foliage, fruit, furniture, machinery, etc.). Some of these words can be used in the form of the common singular with the common plural counterpart, but in this case they come to mean either different sorts of materials, or separate concrete manifestations of the qualities denoted by abstract nouns, or concrete objects exhibiting the respective qualities. Cf.:
Joy is absolutely necessary for normal human life.-It was a joy to see her among us. Helmets for motor-cycling are nowadays made of plastics instead of steel. - Using different modifications of the described method, super-strong steels are produced for various purposes. Etc.
The lexicalizing effect of the correlative number forms (both singular and plural) in such cases is evident, since the categorial component of the referential meaning in each of them is changed from uncountability to countability. Thus, the oppositional reduction is here nullified in a peculiarly lexicalizing way, and the full oppositional force of the category of number is rehabilitated.
Common number with uncountable singular nouns can also be expressed by means of combining them with words showing discreteness, such as bit, piece, item, sort. Cf.:
The last two items of news were quite sensational. Now I'd like to add one more bit of information. You might as well dispense with one or two pieces of furniture in the hall.
This kind of rendering the grammatical meaning of common number with uncountable nouns is, in due siluational conditions, so regular that it can be regarded as special suppletivity in the categorial system of number (see Ch. III, § 4).
On the other hand, the absolute singular, by way of functional oppositional reduction, can be used with countable nouns. In such cases the nouns are taken to express either the corresponding abstract ideas, or else, the meaning of some mass material correlated with its countable referent. Cf.:
Waltz is a lovely dance. There was dead desert all around them. The refugees needed shelter. Have we got chicken for the second course?
Under this heading (namely, the first of the above two sub-points) comes also the generic use of the singular. Cf.:
Man's immortality lies in his deeds. Wild elephant in the Jungle can be very dangerous.
In the sphere of the plural, likewise, we must recognize the common plural form as the regular feature of countability, and the absolute plural form peculiar to the uncountable subclass of pluralia tantum nouns. The absolute plural, as different from the common plural, cannot directly combine with numerals, and only occasionally does it combine with discrete quantifiers (many, few, etc.).
The absolute plural is characteristic of the uncountable nouns which denote objects consisting of two halves (trousers, scissors, tongs, spectacles, etc.), the nouns expressing some sort of collective meaning, i.e. rendering the idea of indefinite plurality, both concrete and abstract (supplies, outskirts, clothes, parings; tidings, earnings, contents, politics; police, cattle, poultry, etc.), the nouns denoting some diseases as well as some abnormal states of the body and mind (measles, rickets, mumps, creeps, hysterics, etc.). As is seen from the examples, from the point of view of number as such, the absolute plural forms can be divided into set absolute plural (objects of two halves) and non-set absolute plural (the rest).
The set plural can also be distinguished among the common plural forms, namely, with nouns denoting fixed sets of objects, such as eyes of the face, legs of the body, legs of the table, wheels of the vehicle, funnels of the steamboat, windows of the room, etc.
The necessity of expressing definite numbers in cases of uncountable pluralia tantum nouns, as well as in cases of countable nouns denoting objects in fixed sets, has brought about different suppletive combinations specific to the plural form of the noun, which exist alongside the suppletive combinations specific to the singular form of the noun shown above. Here belong collocations with such words as pair, set, group, bunch and some others. Cf:. a pair of pincers; three pairs of bathing trunks; a few groups of police; two sets of dice; several cases of measles; etc.
The absolute plural, by way of functional oppositional reduction, can be represented in countable nouns having the form of the singular, in uncountable nouns having the form of the plural, and also in countable nouns having the form of the plural.
The first type of reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with countable nouns in the singular form, concerns collective nouns, which are thereby changed into "nouns of multitude". Cf:.
The family were gathered round the table. The government are unanimous in disapproving the move of the opposition.
This form of the absolute plural may be called "multitude plural".
The second type of the described oppositional reduction, consisting in the use of the absolute plural with uncountable nouns in the plural form, concerns cases of stylistical marking of nouns. Thus, the oppositional reduction results in expressive transposition. Cf:. the sands of the desert; the snows of the Arctic; the waters of the ocean; the fruits of the toil; etc.
This variety of the absolute plural may be called "descriptive uncountable plural".
The third type of oppositional reduction concerns common countable nouns used in repetition groups. The acquired implication is indefinitely large quantity intensely presented. The nouns in repetition groups may themselves be used either in the plural ("featured" form) or in the singular ("unfeatured" form). Cf:.
There were trees and trees all around us. I lit cigarette after cigarette.
This variety of the absolute plural may be called "repetition plural". It can be considered as a peculiar analytical form in the marginal sphere of the category of number (see Ch. III, § 4).
§ 1. Case is the immanent morphological category of the noun manifested in the forms of noun declension and showing the relations of the nounal referent to other objects and phenomena. Thus, the case form of the noun, or contractedly its "case" (in the narrow sense of the word), is a morphological-declensional form.
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 which term we will stick in the following presentation*), to the unfeatured form of the noun, usually called the "common" case. The apostrophized -s serves to distinguish in writing the singular noun in the genitive case from the plural noun in the common case. E.g.: the man's duty, the President's decision, Max's letter; the boy's ball, the clerk's promotion, the Empress's jewels.
* The traditional term "genitive case" seems preferable on the ground that not all the meanings of the genitive case are "possessive".
The genitive of the bulk of plural nouns remains phonetically unexpressed: the few exceptions concern only some of the irregular plurals. Thereby the apostrophe as the graphic sign of the genitive acquires the force of a sort of grammatical hieroglyph. Cf:. the carpenters' tools, the mates' skates, the actresses' dresses.
Functionally, the forms of the English nouns designated as "case forms" relate to one another in an extremely peculiar way. The peculiarity is that the common form is absolutely indefinite from the semantic point of view, whereas the genitive form in its productive uses is restricted to the functions which have a parallel expression by prepositional constructions. Thus, the common form, as appears from the presentation, is also capable of rendering the genitive semantics (namely, in contact and prepositional collocation), which makes the whole of the genitive case into a kind of subsidiary element in the grammatical system of the English noun. This feature stamps the English noun declension as something utterly different from every conceivable declension in principle. In fact, the inflexional oblique case forms as normally and imperatively expressing the immediate syntactic parts of the ordinary sentence in "noun-declensional" languages do not exist in English at all. Suffice it to compare a German sentence taken at random with its English rendering:
Erhebung der Anklage gegen die Witwe Capet scheint wun-schenswert aus Rucksicht auf die Stimmung der Stadt Paris (L. Feuchtwanger). Eng:. (The bringing of) the accusation against the Widow Capet appears desirable, taking into consideration the mood of the City of Paris.
As we see, the five entries of nounal oblique cases in the German utterance (rendered through article inflexion), of which two are genitives, all correspond to one and the same indiscriminate common case form of nouns in the English version of the text. By way of further comparison, we may also observe the Russian translation of the same sentence with its four genitive entries: ВыдвижениеобвиненияпротиввдовыКапеткажетсяжелательным, еслиучестьнастроениегородаПарижа.
Under the described circumstances of fact, there is no wonder that in the course of linguistic investigation the category of case in English has become one of the vexed problems of theoretical discussion.
§ 2. Four special views advanced at various times by different scholars should be considered as successive stages in the analysis of this problem.
The first view may be called the "theory of positional cases". This theory is directly connected with the old grammatical tradition, and its traces can be seen in many contemporary text-books for school in the English-speaking countries. Linguistic formulations of the theory, with various individual variations (the number of cases recognized, the terms used, the reasoning cited), may be found in the works of J.C. Nesfield, M. Deutschbein, M. Bryant and other scholars.
In accord with the theory of positional cases, the unchangeable forms of the noun are differentiated as different cases by virtue of 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. The uninflexional cases of the noun are taken to be supported by the parallel inflexional cases of the personal pronouns. The would-be cases in question can be exemplified as follows.*
* The examples are taken from the book: Nesfield J.C. Manual of English Grammar and Composition. Ldn., 1942, p. 24.
The nominative case (subject to a verb): Rain falls. The vocative case (address): Are you coming, my friend? The dative case (indirect object to a verb): I gave John a penny. The accusative case (direct object, and also object to a preposition): The man killed a rat. The earth is moistened by rain.
In the light of all that has been stated in this book in connection with the general notions of morphology, the fallacy of the positional case theory is quite obvious. The cardinal blunder of this view is, that it substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of the word class, since the case form, by definition, is the variable morphological form of the noun. In reality, the case forms as such serve as means of expressing the functions of the noun in the sentence, and not vice versa. Thus, what the described view does do on the positive lines is that, within the confused conceptions of form and meaning, it still rightly illustrates the fact that the functional meanings rendered by cases can be expressed in language by other grammatical means, in particular, by word-order.
The second view may be called the "theory of prepositional cases". Like the theory of positional cases, it is also connected with the old school grammar teaching, and was advanced as a logical supplement to the positional view of the case.
In accord with the prepositional theory, combinations of nouns with prepositions in certain object and attributive collocations should be understood as morphological case forms. To these belong first of all the "dative" case (to + Noun, for + Noun) and the "genitive" case (of + Noun). These prepositions, according to G. Curme, are "inflexional prepositions", i.e. grammatical elements equivalent to case-forms. The would-be prepositional cases are generally taken (by the scholars who recognize them) as coexisting with positional cases, together with the classical inflexional genitive completing the case system of the English noun.
The prepositional theory, though somewhat better grounded than the positional theory, nevertheless can hardly pass a serious linguistic trial. As is well known from noun-declensional languages, all their prepositions, and not only some of them, do require definite cases of nouns (prepositional case-government); this fact, together with a mere semantic observation of the role of prepositions in the phrase, shows that any preposition by virtue of its functional nature stands in essentially the same general grammatical relations to nouns. It should follow from this that not 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 of such an approach illogical redundancy in terminology would arise: each prepositional phrase would bear then another, additional name of "prepositional case", the total number of the said "cases" running into dozens upon dozens without any gain either to theory or practice [Ilyish, 42].
The third view of the English noun case recognizes a limited inflexional system of two cases in English, one ot them featured and the other one unfeatured. This view may be called the "limited case theory".
The limited case theory is at present most broadly accepted among linguists both in this country and abroad. It was formulated by such scholars as H. Sweet, O. Jespersen, and has since been radically developed by A.I. Smirnitsky, L.S. Barkhudarov and others.
The limited case theory in its modern presentation is based on the explicit oppositional approach to the recognition of grammatical categories. In the system of the English case the functional mark is defined, which differentiates the two case forms: the possessive or genitive form as the strong member of the categorial opposition and the common, or "non-genitive" form as the weak member of the categorial opposition. The opposition is shown as being effected in full with animate nouns, though a restricted use with inanimate nouns is also taken into account. The detailed functions of the genitive are specified with the help of semantic transformational correlations [Бархударов, 1975, 89 ff.].
§ 3. We have considered the three theories which, if at basically different angles, proceed from the assumption that the English noun does distinguish the grammatical case in its functional structure. However, another view of the problem of the English noun cases has been put forward which sharply counters the theories hitherto observed. This view approaches the English noun as having completely lost the category of case in the course of its historical development. All the nounal cases, including the much spoken of genitive, are considered as extinct, and the lingual unit that is named the "genitive case" by force of tradition, would be in reality a combination of a noun with a postposition (i.e. a relational postpositional word with preposition-like functions). This view, advanced in an explicit form by G.N. Vorontsova [Воронцова, 168 ff.] may be called the "theory of the possessive postposition" ("postpositional theory"). Cf:. [Ilyish, 44 ff.; Бархударов, Штелинг, 42 ff.].
Of the various reasons substantiating the postpositional theory the following two should be considered as the main ones.
First, the postpositional element -'s is but loosely connected with the noun, which finds the clearest expression in its use not only with single nouns, but also with whole word-groups of various status. Compare some examples cited by G.N. Vorontsova in her work: somebody else's daughter; another stage-struck girl's stage finish; the man who had hauled him out to dinner's head.