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1.5. The category of Case

The category of Case shows the relations of living beings, things or notions denoted by nouns to other living beings, things and notions. In English this category is characterized by the opposition of the categorial forms of the Common Case (общий падеж) and the Possessive or Genitive Case (притяжательный падеж). The strong member of the opposition is the Possessive Case with the formal mark — '(s) while its weak or unmarked member is the Common Case. Compare: the man's wife — the wife of the man I know well; a week's holiday days of the week.

Since the category of Case relates nouns to other parts of a sentence it appears to be syntactically bound. In other words the realization of the category in the forms of the Common and Possessive Case is indissolubly con­nected with the syntactic functions of the noun.

1.5.1. Common Case: the syntactic functions of nouns

The Common Case has a very wide and general meaning and manifests itself in a number of various syntactic functions of nouns which are defined by the word order and prepositions.

The first and most typical syntactic function per­formed by nouns in the Common Case is the subject the primary part of the sentence which precedes the predicate: Man changes in a changing world. The world is changing.

The second syntactic function of the noun in the Common Case is part of the compound nominal predicate or predicative when it follows a link-verb: / am a teacher. It was bad weather yesterday. They have breakfast at eight о 'clock.

The third syntactic function of nouns in the Com­mon Case is the object — the secondary part of the sen­tence which follows the predicate. The object may be either direct (прямое дополнение), i.e. used immediately after transitive verbs (переходные глаголы} or indirect (косвенное дополнение) when placed between a transitive verb and its direct object. For example: I gave my friend the book. Did you send Susan a birthday card? In these sentences book and birthday card are the direct objects while friend and Susan — the indirect objects. With verbs

like give, hand, direct, send and so on direct and indirect objects may change their places in the sentence: I gave the book to my friend. Did you send a birthday card to Susan? As the examples show the indirect objects friend and Susan are used with the preposition and therefore called prepositional indirect objects.

Not infrequently nouns turn out to be syntactically associated either with the infinitive or present participle as parts of the pattern called Complex Object. For example: I saw my friend cross/crossing the street. I heard the key turn/turning in the keyhole.

Besides, when used with a preposition, nouns in the Common case may fulfil the function of adverbial modi­fier, i.e. a word or group of words that gives additional information about the time, place or circumstances in which the action is going on: Mary had a holiday in sum­mer. She went to the seaside by train. She lived in a little cottage by the sea. She stayed at the cottage for two weeks.

The noun in the Common Case can be used as attribute when a) it is used with the preposition of. a cup of coffee, a member of the club, head of the department. sounds of speech: b) it precedes and describes another noun and forms with it the unstable compound: a coffee pot, a club bar, a head boy, department stores, speech sounds.

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