The Case
refers to the relations of an object/thing/phenomenon (which is denoted by a noun) to other objects, actions and signs, on the one hand, and
presents the means of material or linguistic expression of these relations, on the other.
The are two opposite points of scientific view as for the existence of the category of Case in English:
1) there is the category of Case in English (there are a few approaches to the problem of the English Case);
2) there is not the category of Case in English (a new point of linguistic view).
1. Five general approaches to the problem of the English Case are based on the principle of the number of the cases.
1). There are two cases. The principle of Form.
Henry Sweet
(19th century; an English linguist; Classical Grammar; principles of morphological form and syntactic function)
On the ground of the principle of Form he distinguished two grammatical forms of the English Case:
a) the Common Case (shows the relations of an object in the linguistic form of a noun with actions (verbs) and signs (adjectives)).
The notion of the Common Case was introduced to the English Grammar by H.Sweet;
b) the Possessive Case (shows the object’s possession of another object, thing, phenomenon).
In the second half of the 18th c. Robert Laud (an English linguist) attracted the attention of the scientists to a diachronical change in the structure of the language. The change concerned with the old English Genitive Case (ðîäèòåëüíûé ïàäåæ) which lost its original grammatical meaning and kept only the meaning of possession.
For example:
Mother (the Common Case) did not know where the son’s (the Possessive Case) hat (the Common Case) was left.
2). There are five cases. The principle of Lexical Meaning.
In the field of Semantic Grammar five cases were distinguished on the principle of Lexical Meaning. They were said to be Nominative (èìåíèòåëüíûé), Genitive (ðîäèòåëüíûé), Dative (äàòåëüíûé), Accusative (âèíèòåëüíûé) and Vocative (çâàòåëüíûé) cases.
The approach was criticized by
Jence Otto Harry Jespersen
(1860-1943; a Danish linguist; Philosophy of Grammar; principles of morphological form and syntactic function)
The critics was based on the peculiarity of the approach as it was grounded on Latin which left some traits in English structure but was different: the Latin Noun changed its Grammatical Form whereas the English Noun could change it only in Number and when a possession was emphasized. Latin cases were Nominativus, Genitivus, Dativus, Accusativus, Vocativus and Ablativus (îòäåëèòåëüíûé).
For example:
Table 3.3