The grammatical categories of Noun

English Nouns have 2 grammar categories:The category of number and The category of case.

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. The category of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only within subclass of countable nouns.

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:

oneness (individual separate object – a cat);

generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic animal);

indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness - money, milk).

The plural form may denote:

the existence of several objects (cats);

the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum, jeans).

To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:

The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed: cat::cats;

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:

Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;

Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.

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. Case expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s coat). 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:

Possessive Genitive: Mary’s father – Mary has a father,

Subjective Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,

Objective Genitive: The man’s release – The man was released,

Adverbial Genitive: Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,

Equation Genitive: a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,

Genitive of destination: children’s books – books for children,

Mixed Group: yesterday’s paper

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 fr om 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.

There are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;

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;

There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of objective pronouns me, him, whom;

Case Grammar. 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:

Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;

Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the door;

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);

Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged (the result of the action or state identified by the verb);

Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;

Objective case (O) John stole the book.

Gender plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison with its role in many other languages. There is no gender concord, and the reference of the pronouns he, she, it is very largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as ‘natural’ gender for English, it depends upon the classification of persons and objects as male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of gender as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular semantic association.

According to some language analysts (B.Ilyish, F.Palmer, and E.Morokhovskaya), nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.Ilyish states that not a single word in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor and actress is a purely lexical one. In other words, the category of sex should not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an objective biological category. It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings are manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger – tigress). Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof.Blokh states that the existence of the category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he, she, it). Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter (non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.

 

7. The grammatical categories of the Adjective The English adjective has lost in the course of history all its forms of grammatical agreement with the noun. As a result, the only paradigmatic forms of the adjective are those of degrees of comparison.

The meaning of the category of comparison is expression of different degrees of intensity of some property revealed by comparing referents simi­lar in certain aspects. The category is constituted by the opposition of the three forms: the basic form (positive degree) that has no features of com­parison, the comparative degree form and the superlative degree form. The comparative degree shows that one of the subjects of comparison dem­onstrates quality of higher intensity than the other; the grammatical con­tent of the superlative degree is intensity of a property surpassing all other objects mentioned or implied by the context or situation. However, some adjectives are not capable of forming the degrees of comparison. As a rule, these “deficient” words belong to the class of relative adjectives though, when used metaphorically, even they may occur in the form of the degrees of comparison.

Qualitative adjectives generally have the degrees of comparison. How­ever, distinction should be made between qualitative adjectives which have “gradable” meanings and those which have “absolute” meanings. For exam­ple, a person may be more or less strong, and strong is a gradable adjective for which corresponding gradations are expressed by means of the forms stronger– the strongest. Contrasted to adjectives with such “gradable” meanings are qualitative adjectives denoting some absolute quality (e.g. real, equal, right, blind, dead, etc.). These are incapable of such gradations.

Another group of “non-comparables” is formed by adjectives of indefi­nitely moderated quality, such as yellowish, half-sarcastic, semi-conscious, etc. But the most peculiar word group of non comparables made up by adjectives expressing the highest degree of а quality. The inherent superla­tive semantics of these “extreme adjectives” is emphasized by the definite article normally introducing their nounal combinations, the ultimate result, the final decision. On the other hand, in colloquial speech these extreme qualifiers can sometimes be modified by intensifying elements. Thus, “the final decision” may be changed into “a very final decision”; “the crucial fac­tor” is transformed into “quite a crucial factor”, etc.

The morphological form of the degrees of comparison is restricted by the phonetic structure of a word, namely its syllabic structure: linguists have no doubts about the degrees of comparison of monosyllabic words forming their paradigm by means of the inflections -er and -est: long–longer–the longest.

Adjectives of two syllables may change either morphologically or with the help of the quantifiers lovely–lovelier (more lovely) the loveliest (the most lovely). There are also other limitations. For example adjectives end­ing in two plosive consonants (e.g. direct, rapt) do not have morphological forms. Nevertheless, the adjective strict with its forms stricter–the strictest is the example of the opposite. Polysyllabic adjectives do not have morpho­logical forms of the degree of comparison. The intensity of a property is expressed here with the help of the quantifiers: interesting–more interest­ing—the most interesting.

Grammarians seem to be divided in their opinion as to the linguistic nature of degrees of comparison formed by means of more and (the) most. There is quite a widespread point of view that these word combinations are analytical forms of adjectives, since they are seemingly parallel to the morphological forms. However, there are arguments that may undermine this claim. Firstly,analytical forms do not presuppose the possibility of rep­etition of auxiliaries, which is quite typical of more: Her e-mails become more and more emotional. Secondly, the adverbs more and most, as a rule, preserve their lexical meaning and – which is important – they are lexically opposed to word combinations with less and least, denoting respectively the decrease of intensity. It would be therefore quite consistent to classify the latter word combinations as analytical forms as well but in this case the parallelism with the morphological system proper is broken. On the other hand, phrases with more and most include also so-called elative word combinations (e.g. It was a most spectacular panorama) that are used to convey a very high degree of some property without comparing it to anything. It is important to note that the definite article with the elative construction is also possible. In this case the elative function is less distinctly recognizable, e.g. I found myself in the most awkward situation. Interestingly, though the synthetic superlative degree can be used in the elative function as well (e.g. Itis the greatest pleasure to talk to you), grammarians notice the general tendency to use the superlative elative meaning in the most-construction.

If these elative forms are seen as analytical ones, then, taking into ac­count their semantic similarity, word combinations with very, extremely, to­tally, awfully should also be considered in the same way.