The Theory Of Prepositional Cases

The category of case. The evolution of theoretical interpretations of the category of case in English

The semi-complex sentence is a semi-composite sentence built up on the principle of subordination.

1. sentences built up by means of the two base sentences overlapping round the common subject: The man stood silent.

2. sentences built up of two base sentences overlapping round the word performing different functions in them: We saw him approaching us.

3. sentences with post-positional attributes expressed by Participle 1, Participle II or an adjective

4. sentences with adverbial modifiers expressed by Participle 1, Participle II or The Absolute Participial Construction: The task, when completed, seemed very easy.

5. sentences with the gerundial phrases or the for-to-infinitive constructions: Tom’s coming too late annoyed his mother.

The means of combining clauses are divided into syndetic, i.e. conjunctional, and asyndetic, i.e. non-conjunctional.

The categorial meaning – signaling relations between elements (words) within sentence structure.

In Russian it is a fully-fledged word-changing morphological category with a well-developed paradigm: 3 declensions named simply first, second, and third declensions. The first declension is used for masculine and most neuter nouns. The second declension is used for most feminine nouns (and several masculine nouns having the same form as those of feminine gender, such as папа papa or дядя uncle). The third declension is used for feminine nouns ending in ь and for neuter nouns ending in мя.

Theories of Case
1) The theory of positional case

It is old grammatical tradition set in contemporary text-books for school (J.C. Nesfield, M. Deutschbein, M. Bryant).

IDEA: the unchangeable forms of the noun are differentiated as different cases by virtue of the functional positions occupied by the noun in the sentence.

System of cases therefore includes:

n The inflexional genitive case

n The nominative ['nɔmɪnətɪv] case (subject to a verb): Rain falls.

n The vocative case (address): Are you coming, my friend?

n The dative case (indirect object to a verb): I gave John a penny.

n The accusative [ə ‘kjuːzətɪv] case (direct object, and also an object to a preposition): The man killed a rat. The earth is moistened by rain.

Criticism: This theory substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of the word class.

G. Curme

IDEA: combinations of nouns with prepositions in certain object and attributive collocations should be understood as morphological case-forms. Inflexional prepositions are treated as grammatical elements equivalent to case-forms.

System of cases:

n the dative case (to + NOUN, for + NOUN)

n the genitive case (of + NOUN)

n the common case??

Criticism: all the other prepositional phrases in English must be regarded as analytical cases, the total number of the cases running into dozens upon dozens.

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