The Category of Number

§ 75. As a matter of fact, those nouns which have no num­ber opposites are outside the grammatical category of number. But on the analogy of the bulk of English nouns they acquire

¹ See § 11.

² See G О Curme Syntax. Bost , N Y , Lnd , Heat, 1931, p 542;
О Je=persen Essentials of English Grammar. N. Y , 1938, p 201.

oblique (or lexico-grammatical) meanings of number (§ 44). Therefore singularia tantum are often treated as singulars and pluralia tantum as plurals.

This is justified both by their forms and by their combin-ability.

Cf. This (table, book, milk, love) is ...

These (tables, books, clothes, goods) are ...

When combinability and form contradict each other, combi-rability is decisive, which accounts for the fact that police cr cattle are regarded as plurals, and measles, mathematics as singulars.

§ 76. The lexico-grammatical meaning of a class (or of a subclass) of words is, as we know, an abstraction from the lexical meanings of the words of the class, and depends to a certain extent on those lexical meanings. Therefore singula­ria tantum usually include nouns of certain lexical meanings. They are mostly material, abstract and collective nouns, such as sugar, gold, butter, brilliance, constancy, selfishness, human­ity, soldiery, peasantry.

Yet it is not every material, abstract or collective noun that belongs to the group of singularia tantum (e. g. a plastic, a feeling, a crowd) and, what is more important, not in all of its meanings does a noun belong to this group.

§ 77. As we have already seen (§62), variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses of a part of speech.

In most of th,eir meanings the words joy and sorrow as abstract nouns are singularia tantum.

E.g. He has been a good friend both in joy and in s о г г о w. (Hornby).

But when concrete manifestations are meant, these nouns are countables and have plural opposites, e. g. the joys and sorrows of life.

Likewise, the words copper, tin, hair as material nouns are usually singularia tantum, but when they denote concrete objects, they become countables and get plural opposites: a copper — coppers, a tin — tins, a hair — hairs.

Similarly, when the nouns wine, steel, salt denote some sort or variety of the substance, they become countables.

E. g. an expensive wine — expensive wines.

All such cases are not a peculiarity of the English lan­guage alone. They are found in other languages as well. Cf. дерево — деревья and дерево as a material noun, платье — платья and платье as a collective noun.

Joy and a _toy, beauty and a beauty, copper and a copper, hair and a hair and many other pairs of this kind are not homonyms, as suggested by seme grammarians ¹, but variants of lexemes related by internal conversion (§ 63).

If all such c£ses were regarded as homonyms, the number of homonyms in the English language would be practically limitless. If only some of them were treated as homonyms, that would give rise to uncontrolled subjectivity.

§ 78. The group of pluralia tantum is mostly composed of nouns denoting objects consisting of two or more parts, complex phenomena or ceremonies, e. g. tongs, pincers, trousers, nuptials obsequies. Here also belong some nouns with a distinct collective or material meaning, e. g. clothes, eaves, sweets.

Since in these words the -s suffix does not function as a grammatical morpheme, it gets lexicalized and develops into an inseparable part of the stem ³. This, probably, un­derlies the fact that such nouns as mathematics, optics, lin­guistics, mumps, measles are treated as singularia tantum (§ 75).

§ 79. Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are. plu­ralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form ³.

People in the meaning of 'народ' is a countable noun. In the meaning of 'люди' it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Family in the sense of "a group of people who are related" is a countable noun. In the meaning of "individual members of this group" it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Thus, the lexeme family has two variants:

Sg.

1) family

2) -

¹ Л. С. Бархударов, Д. А. Штелинг. Грамматика
английского языка М , 1960, р 35.

² Л. С. Бархударов, Д А. Штелинг, op. cit , р 36.

³ О. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. Lnd., 1943, p. 208.

E. g. A Imost every f а т i I y in the village has sent a man to the army. (Hornby).

Those were the oldest families in Jorkshire. (Black).

₍ Herfa т i ly were of a delicate constitution. (Bronte).

Similar variants are observed in the lexemes committee, government, board crew, etc.

Colour in the meaning "red, green, blue, etc." is a count­able noun. In the meaning "appearance of reality or truth" (e. g. His torn clothes gave с о l о и г to his story that he had been attacked by robbers. A. Hornby.) it has no plural oppo­site and belongs to the singularia tantum. Colours in the sense of "materials used by painters and artists" has no sin­gular opposite and belongs to the pluralia tantum.

Thus, the lexeme has three variants:

sg.

1) colour

2) colour

3) -

Pl.

When grammarians write that the lexical meanings of some plurals differ from those of their singular opposites ', they simply compare different variants of a lexeme.

§ 80. Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.

Cf. brother (son of same parents) — brothers brother (fellow member) — brethren fish — fish (e. g. / caught five fish yesterday.) ' fish — fishes ('different species', e. g. ocean fishes).

The Category of Case

§ 81. The category of case of'nouns is the system of op­posemes (such as girl—girl's in English, дом — дома — дому — дом — домом — (о) доме in Russian) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other

¹ В. Н Ж и г а д л о, И. П. И в а н о в а,' Л. Л. И о ф и к, op. cit., p. 30.

substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality *. In the sentence / took John's hat by mistake the case of the noun John's shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some re­flection of the relations between John and his hat in reality.

§ 82. Case is one of those categories which show the close connection (a) between language and speech, (b) between mor­phology and syntax.

(a) A case opposerne is, like any other opposeme, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of a case opposeme is in their combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russian with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the nominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in the combinability of each oblique case: одобрять поступок, не одобряп ь поступка, удивляться поступку, восхищаться поступком, etc.

We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that поступок — поступка — поступку, etc. are united paradigmatically in the Russian language on the basis of their syntagmatic differences in speech. Similarly, the members of the case opposeme John — John's are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.

Naturally, both members of an English noun case opposeme have the features of English nouns, inclading their combina­bility. Thus, they may be preceded by an article, an adjective, a numeral, a pronoun, etc.

a student ...,

the student...,

a good student ...,

his brother ...,

the two brothers ....

a student's ... the student's ... a good student's ... his brother's ... the two brothers' ...

Yet, the common case grammemes are used in a variety of combinations where the possessive case grammemes do not, as a rule, occur. In the following examples, for instance, John's or boys' can hardly be substituted for John or boys: John saw the boys, The boys were seen by John, It was owing to the boys that ..., The boys and he ..., etc.

i See В. В. В и н о г р а д о в, op. cit, p. 167.

(b) Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfil a number o! syntactical functions not typical of pos­sessive case grammemas, .among them the functions of sub­ject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute.

§ 83. All case opposemes are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings, of 'common' case and 'pos­sessive' case, united by the general meaning of the category, that of 'case'. There is not much variety in the form of case opposemes either, which distinguishes English from Russian (see § 100).

An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposemes at most (man —man's, men — men's). Some lexemes have but one opposeme (England — England's, cattle — cattle's). Many lexemes have no case opposemes at all (book, news, foliage)

In the opposeme dog — dog's, men — men's, the 'common' case is not marked, i. e. dog and men have zero morphemes of 'common case'. The 'possessive' case is marked by the suffix -'s /-s, -z, -iz/. In the opooseme dogs — dogs' the difference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the two opposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are not marked.

Thus, -'s is the enly positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no exaggeration to say that the whole cat­egory depends on this morpheme.

§ 84. As already mentioned (§ 61), with regard to the category of case English nouns fall under two lexico-grammat-ical subclasses: declinables, having case opposites, and indeclinables, having no case opposites.

The subclass of declinables is comparatively limited, including mostly nouns denoting living beings, also time and distance ^J.

Indeclinables like book, iron, care have, as a norm, only the potential (or oblique, or lexico-grammatical) meaning of the common case. But it is sometimes actualized when a case opposite of these words is formed in speech, as in The

¹ See M. Garibhma and N. Vasilevskaya. English Grammar. M., 1953, p. 31-32.

book' s philosophy is old-fashioned. (The Tribune, Can­ada).

As usual, variants of one lexeme may belong to different subclasses (§ 62). Youth meaning 'the state of being young' belongs to the indeclinables. Its variant youth meaning 'a young man' has a case opposite (The у о и t h' s candid smile disarmed her. Black) and belongs to the declinables.

§ 85. Since both cases and prepositions show 'relations of substances', some linguists speak of analytical cases in Modern English. To the student is said to be an analytical dative case (equivalent, for instance, to the Russian студенту), of the-student is understood as an analytical genitive case (equivalent to студента), by the student as an analytical instrumental case (cf. студентом), etc.

The theory of analytical cases seems to be inconvincing for a number of reasons.

1. In order to treat the combinations of the student, to
the student, by the student as analytical words (like shall
come or has come) we must regard of, to, with as grammatical
word-morphemes ¹. But then they are to be devoid of lexical
meaning, which they are not. Like most words a preposition
is usually polysemantic and each meaning is singled out in
speech, in a sentence or a word-combination. Cf. to speak
of the student, the speech of the student, news of the student,
it was kind of the student, what became of the student, etc.
In each case of shows one of its lexical meanings. Therefore
it cannot be regarded as a grammatical word-morpheme, and
the combination of the student cannot be treated as an analyt­
ical word.

2. A grammatical category, as known, is represented in
opposemes comprising a definite number of members. Combi­
nations with different prepositions are too numerous to be
interpreted as opposemes representing the category of case.
The number of cases in English becomes practically unlimit­
ed ².

3. Analytical words usually form opposemes with synthetic
ones ³ (comes — came — will come). With prepositional con-

¹ See § 12.

^{2 See Г. Н. Воронцова. Очерки по грамматике английского
языка. П., I960, р. 180.}

3 See § 26.

structions it is different. They are often synonymous with synthetic words.

E. g. the son of my friend = my friend's son; the wall of the garden = the garden wall.

On the other hand, prepositional constructions can be used side by side with synthetic cases, as in that doll of Mary's, a friend of John's. If we accepted the theory of analytical cases, we should see in of John's a double-case word *, which would be some rarity in English, there being no double-tense words nor double-aspect words and the like ².

4. There is much subjectivity in the choice of preposi­tions supposed to form analytical cases ³. Grammarians usually point out those prepositions whose meanings approx­imate to the meanings of some cases in other languages or in Old English. But the analogy with other languages or with an older stage of the same language does not prove the exist­ence of a given category in a modern language.

Therefore we think it unjustified to speak of units like to the student, of the student, etc. as of analytical cases. They are combinations of nouns in the common case with preposi­tions.

§ 86. The morpheme -'s, on which the category of case of English nouns depends (§ 83), differs in some respects from other grammatical morphemes of the English language and from the case morphemes of other languages.

As emphasized by B. A. Ilyish ⁴, -'s is no longer a case inflexion in the classical sense of the word. Unlike such classical inflexions, -'s may be attached

a) to adverbs (of substantival origin), as in yesterday's
events,

b) to word-groups, as in Mary and John's apartment, our
professor of literature's unexpected departure,

c) even to whole clauses, as in the well-worn example
the man I saw yesterday's son.

¹ "Double genitive", in the terminology of Kruisinga

² See А. И. Смирницкий, op. cit, p. 9.

³ This, among other reasons, accounts for the divergence of views
concerning the number of cases in English.

⁴ Б. А. И л ь и ш, op. cit., p. 99—100.

В. A. Ilyish comes to the conclusion that the -'s morpheme gradually develops into a "form-word" ¹, a kind of particle serving to convey the meaning of belonging, possession ².

G. N. Vorontsova does not recognize -'s as a case morpheme at all ³. The reasons she puts forward to substantiate her point of view are as follows:

1) The use of -'s is optional (her brother's, of her brother).

2) It is used with a limited group of nouns outside which
it occurs very seldom.

3) -'s is used both in the singular and in the plural (child's,
children's), which is not incident to case morphemes (cf.
мальчик-а, мальчик-ов).

4) It occurs in very few plurals, only those with the irreg­
ular formation of the plural member (oxen's but cows').

5) -'s does not make an inseparable part of the structure
of the word. It may be placed at some distance from the
head-noun of an attributive group.

"Been reading that fellow what's his name's attacks in the 'Sunday Times"?" (Bennett).

Proceeding from these facts G. N. Vorontsova treats -'s as a 'postposition', a 'purely syntactical form-word resembl­ing a preposition', used as a sign of syntactical dependence ⁴.

In keeping with this interpretation of the -'s morpheme the author denies the existence of cases in Modern English.

At present, however, this extreme point of view can hardly be accepted ⁵. The following arguments tend to show that -'s does function as a case morpheme.

1. The -'s morpheme is mostly attached to individual nouns ⁶, not noun groups. According to our statistics this is observed in 96 per cent of examples with this morpheme. Instances like The man I saw yesterday's son are very rare and may be interpreted in more ways than one. As already mentioned (§ 32), the demarcation line between words and

150, 51).

¹ What v.e call a semi-notional word (see

² Б. А. И л ь и ш, op. cit , p. 100

³ Г. Н. В о р о н ц о в а. Об именном форманте -'s в современном
английском языке. («Иностранные языки в школе», 1948, № 3, 4);
Г. Н. В'о р о н ц о в а. Очерки по грамматике английского языка.
М., 1960, pp. 181—183.

⁴ We find a similar interpretation of -'s in Л. С. Бархударов,
Д. А. Ш т е л и н г, op. cit., p. 42.

⁶ А. И. С м и р н и ц к и и, op. cit., § 60. Mb.

combinations of words is very vague in English. A word-combination can easily be made to function as one word.

Cf. a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establish­ment^. Henry), the eighty-year-olds (D. W.).

In the last example the plural morpheme -s is in fact attached to an adjective word-combination, turning it into a noun. It can be maintained that the same morpheme -'s like­wise substantivizes the group of words to which it is attached, and we get something like the man-1-saw-yesterday's son.

2. Its general meaning — "the relation of a noun to an­
other word" — is a typical case meaning.

3. The fact that -'s occurs, as a rule, with a more or less
limited group of words bears testimony to its not being
a "preposition-like form word". The use of the preposition
is determined, chiefly, by the meaning of the preposition
itself and not by the meaning of the noun it introduces (Cf. о п
the table, i n the table, un d e r the table, over the table etc.)

4. The fact that the possessive case is expressed in oxen —
oven's by -'s and in cows — cows' by zero cannot serve as
an argument against the existence of cases in English nouns
because -'s and zero are here forms of the same morpheme
(see § 29):

a) Their meanings are identical.

b) Their distribution is complementary.

5. As a minor argument against the view that -'s is "a
preposition-like word", it is pointed out ^l that -'s differs
phonetically from all. English prepositions in not having
a vowel, a circumstance limiting its independence.

Yet, it cannot be denied that the peculiarities of the -'s morpheme are such as to admit no doubt of its being es­sentially different from the case morphemes of other lan­guages. It is evident that the case system of Modern English is undergoing serious changes.