The category of case of nouns

CHAPTER I NOUN
1.1. The definition of the category of Case.
When we first start to learn the parts of speech, trying to identify different words can seem like a challenge. This process gets easier with practice. Here are some noun examples to help you get started. The nouns in each sentence have been italicized.

• 
  Person – He is the person to see.
  
• 
  Person – John started to run.
  
• 
  Person – Plato was an influential Greek philosopher.
  
• 
  Person – Sharon admires her grandfather.
  
• 
  Person – My mother looks a lot like my grandmother, and I look very much like them.
  

Animal – The dog barked at the cat.

• 
  Animal – Elephants never forget.
  
• 
  Animal – Sophie is my favorite horse.
  

• 
  Place – The restaurant is open.
  
• 
  Place – Let’s go to the beach.
  
• 
  Place – Look over there.
  
• 
  Place – Come here.
  
• 
  Place – Harvard and Yale are two famous universities.
  
• 
  Place – Look! There’s the Eiffel Tower.
  

• 
  Thing – Throw the ball.
  
• 
  Thing – Please close the door and lock it.
  
• 
  Thing – Use words properly to be understood.
  
• 
  Thing – The lamp sits on a table next to the sofa.
  
• 
  Thing – Money doesn’t grow on trees.
  

• 
  Idea – Follow the rules.
  
• 
  Idea – The theory of relativity is an important concept.
  
• 
  Idea – Love is a wonderful emotion.
  

How Nouns Function
Nouns have several important functions. While it’s impossible to list them all here, we’ll go over the most important jobs nouns are tasked with.

• 
  Nouns are subjects. Every sentence has a subject, which is a noun that tells us what that sentence is all about. John swung the baseball bat.
  
• 
  Nouns are direct objects. These nouns receive action from verbs. John swung the baseball bat.
  
• 
  Nouns are indirect objects. These nouns receive the direct object. Brad threw John the ball.¹
  
• 
  Nouns are objects of prepositions. These nouns follow the prepositions in prepositional phrases. John swung the baseball bat at Greg.
  
• 
  Nouns are predicate nominatives. These nouns follow linking verbs and rename the subject. John is a baseball player.
  

• 
  Nouns are object complements. These nouns complete the direct object. They named their dog Max.
  

In the course of its historic development the English noun has lost its former Case system. Thus “case” which is a morphological category present in German, Russian and many other languages, is not as significant for the English noun as it used to before.
The English noun, however, has retained one remnant of its former case system, called the possessive case form: the use of this form is illustrated by the following examples:
e.g. the Government’s public relations;
Mr Walker’s announcement;
their children’s lives;
a parents’ union;
Diana and Maria’s general answer.
In Modern English the Category of case is formed by the opposition of two categorial forms: the Common Case : : the Possessive Case:
e.g. a boy – boy’s book; boys’ books
a doctor – doctor’s bag; doctors’ bags.
The latter form is often termed “Possessive”, although the few examples above show that the scope of its meaning is wider than possession in the narrow sense of the word: e.g. an hour’s walk; Thompson’s paintings. As its function is to determine the following noun, this form is dealt with as possessive determiner. Since its meaning is not reduced to possession alone, it is often referred to as Genitive.
The Case forms are given in the table:
Plural
boy’s
boy
boys’
boys
man’s
man
men’s
men
child’s
child
children’s
children
cat’s
cat
cats’
cats
wife’s
wife
wives’
wives
fox’s
fox
foxes’
foxes
ox’s
ox
oxen’s
oxen
Case forms are inflexional noun forms. Since there is only one positive inflexional morpheme { -‘s} in English, expressing its syntactical function in the sentence, there are reasons to admit a two-member case system in Modern English, represented by the zero morpheme (the Common Case) / the { -‘s} morpheme (the Genitive Case). Thus, the category of Case in English is constituted by the two categorial forms: the strong member (marked) with the ‘s – the Genitive Case : : the weak member (unmarked) – the Non-Genitive Case form (the Common Case).
The Genitive Case morpheme { -‘s} is represented by the three phonologically conditioned allomorphs /s/, /z/, /iz/. { -‘s} is pronounced as /s/ after voiceless, /z/ after voiced, /iz/ after sibilants. Unlike the {s} morpheme that helps build the Plural form, { -‘s} has no unproductive allomorphs. It is only in some of the nouns that the Genitive Case morpheme is given separately from that of the Number morpheme: e.g. men’s, children’s, oxen’s. In the rest of the nouns the morphemes of the Plural and Case forms merge.
The problem of case has always been a complicated and vague one in many respects. Linguists differ on the number and nomenclature of noun case forms as well as the semantics of these forms. Moreover, the category of case itself is being questioned. Undoubtedly, there are reasons for it.
The first view to be dealt with is the theory of “positional cases”. It is directly connected with the old grammatical tradition. In accord with this theory, the unchangeable forms of the noun are differentiated as different cases by virtue of the functional positions occupied by the noun in the sentence. On the analogy of classical Latin Grammar, the English noun would distinguish besides the inflexional genitive case, also the non-inflexional, i.e. purely positional cases: Nominative, Vocative, Dative and Accusative.
The Case in grammar means the relationship of nouns and pronouns to each other in the sentence. In terms of syntax nouns function as subjects, objects, nominative predicatives, attributes and adverbials (together with prepositions).
e.g. Obviously, he wrote this letter with his left hand outside the office room.
Leo Tolstoy is a great writer of the 20^th century.
Bill, open the door!
The fallacy of this theory is quite obvious: it substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological form of the noun as the word class, since the case form is a variable morphological form of the noun. The positive thing about this approach is that it shows that the functional meaning rendered by cases can be expressed in language by other grammatical means, i.e. by word order in particular.
Like the theory of positional cases, prepositional phrases like “of the boy”, “to the boy”, “from the boy”, were considered to be the “genitive” case form, the “dative” case form and the “ablative” case form correspondingly.
However, this opinion is not very well grounded. According to L. S. Barkhudarov, the prepositional phrases like listed above, can’t be identified as analytical word-forms. They belong to the syntax, not morphology.
The theory of analytical cases seems to be unconvincing 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. 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. ²