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.

Possessive case

The Possessive case expresses possession in the broadest sense of the word: a man's coat, a man's hand, a man's life, a dog's bowl, a dog's tail, etc.

Grammatically the Possessive case is indicated either by a) adding to nouns 's (apostrophy and 's) or by b) ad­ding -' (apostrophy only). The apostrophy followed by 's is added to 1) nouns in the singular: a man's coat, the act­ress's voice, a dog's bowl, 2) nouns in the plural which form their plural number by the non-productive means, i.e. without the suffix — (e)s: women's dresses, children's toys, 3) nouns in the plural which in singular have the final -5: actresses' voices, The apostrophy without -s is added to nouns in the plural: teachers' advice, the stu­dents ' books, dogs' bowls.

Some proper names ending in -s admit of both - 's and -': Burns's poems — Burns'poems, Dickens's no­vels — Dickens' novels.

Irrespective of the given types of spelling both 's and ' are pronounced in the same way as the mark of the plural number, i.e. a) [z] after vowels and voiced conso­nants: teacher's, dog's, b) Is] after voiceless consonants: student's, c) [iz] after sibilants: actress's, actresses', fox's, foxes', Burns', Dickens's.

However, the Possessive case form of plural nouns tends to be pronounced [iz] to differentiate it from that of singular nouns. Compare: the politician's wife [z] — the politicians ' wives [iz].

As it follows from the examples illustrating the use of the Possessive case in English, the grammatical form in question is chiefly expressed by animate nouns — human or more rarely by non-human both common and proper nouns. Besides, a few groups of inanimate nouns which are able to take the form of the Possessive case may be singled out. They are: a) inanimate abstract nouns deno­ting a certain period of time such as moment, minute,

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