The conception of grammatical category. Grammatical categories of English noun - ОРИГИНАЛЬНОСТЬ БОЛЕЕ 70%

The concept of grammatical categories developed by linguists promotes understanding of the basic rules of construction grammar enables to maneuver between them, replacing each other.
The basis of my course work is based on a study of the genesis of the concept of grammatical categories and explore the noun as a grammatical category, and basic methods of forming nouns. Course work was written on the basis of scientific works of both foreign and domestic scholars.
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Introduction
1.1. The genesis of the concept of grammatical categories
1.2. The concept of grammatical categories in the modern sense
1.3. Grammatical categories of English noun
2.1. The category of number
2.2. The category of case
2.3. The Problem of Gender in English
Сonclusions
List of references

Language is a unique entity with which people can exchange ideas and experiences, to express in writing as well as orally thoughts and perceive the world around. Each language is unique. It has been created over the centuries by different generations and come down to us so that we can freely co-exist.
English was endowed with a special interest because it is recognized as a universal language to communicate at the international level. It is used by politicians, international organizations and even the courts, but the most important thing is that the English language used by tourists for intercontinental communication.

Today, there are different approaches to determining the essence of nouns, with a basis of these definitions posited the concept of grammatical categories. In particular, one of the most modern definitions can be considered the idea of R.L.Trask. He said "Grammatical category is a linguistic category which has the effect of modifying the forms of some class of words in a language. The words of everyday language are divided up into several word classes, or parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs and adjectives. It often happens that the words in a given class exhibit two or more forms used in somewhat different grammatical circumstances. In each such case, this variation in form is required by the presence in the language of one or more grammatical categories applying to that class of words."English nouns are affected by only one grammatical category, that of number: we have singular dog but plural dogs, and so on for most (but not all) of the nouns in the language. These forms are not interchangeable, and each must be used always and only in specified grammatical circumstances. And here is a key point: we must alwaysuse a noun in either its singular form or its plural form, even when the choice seems irrelevant; there is no possibility of avoiding the choice, and there is no third form which is not marked one way or the other. This is typically the case with grammatical categories." [16, p. 65-66] Types of NounsThere are several ways to classify the types of nouns that exist in the English language. In traditional grammar, nouns are taught to be words that refer to people, places, things, or abstract ideas. While modern linguistics find this definition to be problematic because it relies on non-specific nouns such as thing to specifically define what a noun is, much of our social understanding of what nouns are defers tothe traditional definition.Classifications of NounsProper NounsA noun belonging to the class of words used as names for unique individuals, events, or places.[1]  Also called proper name. For example, Russia, Volga, Saint-Peterburg etc. These categories of nouns show their distinction from common nouns.Common NounsA noun that refers to each member of a whole classsharing the features connoted by the noun, as for example planet, orange, and drum Compare proper noun. [7]Collective NounsIn general, collective nouns are nouns that refer to a group of something in a specific manner. Often, collective nouns are used to refer to groups of animals. Consider the following sentences.Look at the gaggle of geese. There used to be herds of wild buffalo on the prairie. A bevy of swans is swimming in the pond. A colony of ants live in the anthill. In the above examples, gaggle, herds, bevy, and colony are collective nouns.Concrete NounsConcrete nouns are nouns that can be touched, smelled, seen, felt, or tasted. Steak, table, dog, Maria, salt, and wool are all examples of concrete nouns.Can I pet your dog? Please pass the salt. Your sweater is made of fine wool.Concrete nouns can be perceived by at least one of our senses.Abstract NounsMore ethereal, theoretical concepts use abstract nouns to refer to them. Concepts like freedom, love, power, andredemption are all examples of abstract nouns.They hate us for our freedom. All you need is love. We must fight the power.In these sentences, the abstract nouns refer to concepts, ideas, philosophies, and other entities that cannot be concretely perceived.PronounsPersonal pronouns are types of nouns that take the place of nouns when referring to people, places or things. The personal pronouns in English are I, you, he, she, it, and they.Amy works at a flower shop. She works at a flower shop.The Greeks invented democracy. They invented democracy.These pronouns take on other forms depending on what type of function they are performing in a sentence. For example, when used to signify possession of another noun, pronouns take on their possessive form such as mine, ours, hers, andtheirs.That pizza belongs to Marley. That pizza is hers.When used as the object of a preposition, pronouns take on their objective case. Examples include him, her, me, us, andthem.Hand the money over to Jennifer. Hand the money over to her.The police are on to John and Ray. The police are on to them. [14] The category of number Grammatical categories are not expected to be similar in two languages, thus, making problems for translators, interpreters, language learners and people on the whole enjoying the riches of foreign literature. This article deals with the grammatical category NUMBER in the English and Lithuanian languages. Number is distinguished in nouns, pronouns and verbs in English but in nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives in Lithuanian. The article primarily concerns nouns. It is not difficult to observe that the classification of nouns is not and cannot be similar in the two languages which may be the reason why the grammatical category under consideration is different in English and Lithuanian and may cause various misunderstandings. Therefore, characteristic features of the grammatical category NUMBER in both languages will be pointed out so that the differences are easily distinguishable making the understanding of certain grammatical phenomena a lot easier for the readers. A Dictionary of Linguistics defines number as follows: The grammatical distinction, common to the majority of the principal families or groups of languages, based on a morphological differentiation according as the speaker intends to designate one object, thing, etc., or more than one. The form designating one is called the singular, that designating more than one is the plural. Some languages have also distinct forms to designate two (dual), some even forms to designate three (trial) and even four (quatrial). On the other hand, certain languages attach no importance to number distinction and indicate number by special linguistic devices, only when especially emphasized or absolutely necessary for the proper interpretation of the utterance (1975: 149). It is clear from the definition that number is a property of linguistic elements, namely parts of speech. Still, the clear characteristics of the grammatical category NUMBER in the English language should be stated so that one can easily distinguish it in an English utterance. The distinctive features of NUMBER are extracted from two basic sources: A Grammar of Contemporary English and Collins Cobuild English Grammar. On that ground a test is created for the particular analysis to help single out NUMBER from other component parts of words. 1. Number is found in nouns (book / books1 ), verbs (is going / are going) and pronouns (I / we). 2. Number has two forms: singular and plural. 3. The singular category is unmarked morphologically. The plural category is sometimes marked by an inflection –s, e.g. dog – dogs, song – songs. But sometimes there is no inflection and the word is still plural, e.g. cattle. Also, words under consideration may possess singular and plural suppletive forms, e.g. is / are. 1 The examples with no references following them are created to illustrate the particular point in the text. 4. There is number concord between subjects and finite verbs in utterances. Concord is “defined as the relationship between two grammatical elements such that if one of them contains a particular feature (e.g. plurality) then the other also has to have that feature”. [18, p.34] Number concord means that a singular subject requires a singular verb and a plural subject requires a plural verb, e.g. the bird is flying / the birds are flying. Noun is “a word which refers to people, things, and abstract ideas such as feelings and qualities”, e.g. woman, Harry, guilt. [6, р.13] Different grammars differently introduce the classification of nouns. Since the focus is put on the grammatical category NUMBER, it is important to show how nouns are classified with respect to number. Thus, nouns are distinguished into variable and invariable. They are classified “according to whether they have a plural form, whether they need a determiner in front of them, and whether they occur with a singular or a plural verb when they are the subject of the verb”. [5, p. 97] Variable nouns are always count nouns and can change their number, e.g. book - books. Nouns invariable for number do not change their number and are either singular, e.g. gold or plural, e.g. cattle. They are often referred to as mass nouns. Invariable nouns are further subdivided into singular and plural invariable nouns. Five subtypes of singular and five subtypes of plural invariable nouns are presented in A Grammar of Contemporary English [7].The grammatical category of number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form. The category of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the dependent implicit grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only within subclass of countable nouns.The grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one object while the plural form may be used to denote one object consisting of several parts. The singular form may denote:oneness (individual separate object – a cat);generalization (the meaning of the whole class – The cat is a domestic animal);indiscreteness (нерасчлененность or uncountableness - money, milk).The plural form may denote:the existence of several objects (cats);the inner discreteness (внутренняя расчлененность, pluralia tantum, jeans).To sum it up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:The nouns in which the opposition of explicit discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed :cat::cats;The nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context. There are two groups here:Singularia tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;Pluralia tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games, etc.The nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and syntactically in the context: e.g. Look! A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass. [14] 2.2. The category of case.In Modern English the problem of case is reduced to the dispute whether the case category exists as such. Open to thought and questioning, this problem has always been much debated. The solution of the problem depends mainly on grammarians’ interpretation of the term “case”. As we will see below, some scholars consider it to be possible to speak only of case as a paradigm of a word formed by synthetic markers, i.e. by endings. Other scientists believe that the term “analytical case” is justified: analytical cases are formed by prepositions introducing a noun.This category is expressed in English by the opposition of the form -‘s, usually called the possessive case, or more traditionally, the genitive case, to the unfeatured form of the noun, usually called thecommon case. The apostrophized -s serves to distinguish in writing the singular noun in the possessive case from the plural noun in the common case: the man s duty, the President s decision. The possessive of the bulk of plural nouns remains phonetically unexpressed: the few exceptions concern only some of the irregular plurals: the actresses ‘dresses, the mates ‘help, the children s room.Functionally, the forms of the English nouns designated as “case forms” relate to one another in an extremely peculiar way. The peculiarity is that the common form is absolutely indefinite from the semantic point of view, whereas the possessive form is restricted to the functions which have a parallel expression by prepositional constructions. Thus, the common form, as appears from the presentation, is also capable of rendering the possessive semantics, which makes the whole of the possessive case into a kind of subsidiary element in the grammatical system of the English noun. This feature stamps English noun declension as something utterly different from every conceivable declension in principle. In fact, the inflectional oblique case forms as normally and imperatively expressing the immediate functional parts of the ordinary sentence in “noun-declensional” languages do not exist in English at all.Four special views advanced at various times by different scholars should be considered as successive stages in the analysis of this problem.The first view may be called the “theory of positional cases”. This theory is directly connected with the old grammatical tradition, and its traces can be seen in many contemporary school textbooks in the English-speaking countries. Linguistic formulations of this theory may be found in the works of Nesfield, Deutschbein, Bryant and others.In accord with the theory of positional cases, the unchangeable forms of the noun are differentiated as different cases by virtue of the functional positions occupied by the noun in the sentence. Thus, the English noun, on the analogy of classical Latin grammar, would distinguish, besides the inflectional possessive case, also the non-infiectional, i.e. purely positional cases: nominative, vocative, dative and accusative. The uninflectional cases of the noun are taken to be supported by the parallel inflectional cases of the personal pronouns:Nominative (subject)              RainfallsVocative (address)                 Will you be there, Ann?Dative (indirect object)           I gave Anna book.Accusative (direct object)  They killed a bear.Or prepositional object           They broke the window with a stone.The blunder of this theory is that it substitutes the functional characteristics of the part of the sentence for the morphological features of the word class, whereas the case form, by definition, is a variable morphological form of the noun. What this theory does prove is that the functional meanings rendered by cases can be expressed in language by other grammatical means, in particular, by word-order.The second view may be called the “theory of prepositional cases”. It is also connected with the old school grammar teaching, and was advanced as a logical supplement to the positional view of the case.In accord with the prepositional theory, combinations of nouns with prepositions in certain object and attributive collocations should be understood as morphological case forms. To these belong first of all the “dative” case (to + N, for + N) and the possessive case (of + N). These prepositions are inflectional prepositions, i.e. grammatical elements equivalent to case forms. The would-be prepositional cases are generally taken as coexisting with positional cases, together with the classical inflectional genitive completing the case system of the English noun. The prepositional theory, though somewhat better grounded than the positional theory, nevertheless can hardly pass a serious linguistic trial. In other languages all prepositions do require definite cases of nouns (prepositional case-government). It should follow from this that not only the of, to and fог-phrases but also all other prepositional phrases in English must be regarded as “analytical” cases. As a result of this approach, illogical redundancy in terminology would arise: each prepositional phrase would bear then another, additional name of “prepositional case”, the total number of the “said” cases running into dozens upon dozens without any gain either to theory or practice.Besides, prepositions may have various meanings depending on the context, which makes it possible for a preposition to correlate with several cases. For example, in English the preposition by, formerly a purely local form (He stood by the window) came to acquire a sense of means or instrument. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that this preposition acquired its instrumental sense via expressions such as She read by candlelight where the йу-phrase, originally a locative (Where did she read?), was reinterpreted as instrumental (How did she read it?). It is not hard to find situations that allow a locative or instrumental interpretation and which could facilitate a locative or instrumental form adopting both functions. Here are some examples: wash the cloth in/with water, cook meat on/in/with fire, come on/by horse.The third view of the English noun case recognizes a limited inflectional system of two cases in English, one of them featured and the other one un-featured. This view may be called the “limited case theory”.This theory is at present most broadly accepted among linguists both in this country and abroad. It was formulated by such scholars as Sweet, Jespersen, and has since been radically developed by Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov and others.The limited case theory is based on the explicit oppositional approach to the recognition of grammatical categories. In the system of the English case the functional mark is defined, which differentiates the two case forms: the possessive or genitive form as the strong member of the categorical opposition and thecommon, or “non-genitive” form as the weak member of the categorical opposition. The opposition is shown as being effected in full with animate nouns, though a restricted use with inanimate nouns is also taken into account.Case expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or sentence (my sister’s coat). The category of case correlates with the objective category of possession. The case category in English is realized through the opposition: The Common Case : The Possessive Case (sister : sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term “genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive case” because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those of possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is the following :To avoid confusion with the plural, the marker of the genitive case is represented in written form with an apostrophe. This fact makes possible disengagement of –`s form fr om the noun to which it properly belongs. E.g.: The man I saw yesterday’s son, where -`s is appended to the whole group (the so-called group genitive). It may even follow a word which normally does not possess such a formant, as in somebody else’s book.There is no universal point of view as to the case system in English. Different scholars stick to a different number of cases.There are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;There are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;There are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to the existence of objective pronouns me, him, whom;Case Grammar. Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of the sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to different relations to nouns. There are 6 cases:Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the door;Dative Case (D) John believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected by the state of action identified by the verb);Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged ( the result of the action or state identified by the verb);Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;Objective case (O) John stole the book. [16, p. 48-50]2.3. The Problem of Gender in EnglishThe problematic character of gender in Modern English is a rather burning issue.