 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
33
some examples cited by G.N. Vorontsova in her work: somebody else's daughter; another stage-struck girl's
stage finish; the man who had hauled him out to dinner's head.
Second, there is an indisputable parallelism of functions between the possessive postpositional
constructions and the prepositional constructions, resulting in the optional use of the former. This can be shown
by transformational reshuffles of the above examples: ...
> the daughter of somebody else; ... > the stage
finish of another stage-struck girl; ... > the head of the man who had hauled him out to dinner.
One cannot but acknowledge the rational character of the cited reasoning. Its strong point consists in the
fact that it is based on a careful observation of the lingual data. For all that, however, the theory of the
possessive postposition fails to take into due account the consistent insight into the nature of the noun form in -
's achieved by the limited case theory. The latter has demonstrated beyond any doubt that the noun form in -'s
is systemically, i.e. on a strictly structural-functional basis, contrasted against the unfeatured form of the noun,
which does make the whole correlation of the nounal forms into a grammatical category of case-like order,
however specific it might be.
As the basic arguments for the recognition of the noun form in -'s in the capacity of grammatical case,
besides the oppositional nature of the general functional correlation of the featured and unfeatured forms of the
noun, we will name the following two.
First, the broader phrasal uses of the postpositional -'s like those shown on the above examples, display a
clearly expressed stylistic colouring; they are, as linguists put it, stylistically marked, which fact proves their
transpositional nature. In this connection we may formulate the following regularity: the more self-dependent
the construction covered by the case-sign -'s, the stronger the stylistic mark (colouring) of the resulting genitive
phrase. This functional analysis is corroborated by the statistical observation of the forms in question in the
living English texts. According to the data obtained by B.S. Khaimovich and B.I. Rogovskaya, the -'s sign is
attached to individual nouns in as many as 96 per cent of its total textual occurrences [Khaimovich,
Rogovskaya. 64]. Thus, the immediate casal relations are realized by individual nouns, the phrasal, as well as
some non-nounal uses of the -'s sign, being on the whole of a secondary grammatical order.
Second, the -'s sign from the point of view of its segmental status in language differs from ordinary
functional words. It is morpheme-like by its phonetical properties; it is strictly postpositional unlike the
prepositions; it is semantically by far a more bound element than a preposition, which, among other things, has
hitherto prevented it from being entered into dictionaries as a separate word.
As for the fact that the "possessive postpositional construction" is correlated with a parallel prepositional
construction, it only shows the functional peculiarity of the form, but cannot disprove its case-like nature, since
cases of nouns in general render much the same functional semantics as prepositional phrases (reflecting a wide
range of situational relations of noun referents).
§ 4. The solution of the problem, then, is to be sought on the ground of a critical synthesis of the positive
statements of the two theories: the limited case theory and the possessive postposition theory.
A two-case declension of nouns should be recognized in English, with its common case as a "direct" case,
and its genitive case as the only oblique case. But, unlike the case system in ordinary noun-declensional
languages based on inflexional word change, the case system in English is founded on a particle expression.
The particle nature of -'s is evident from the fact that it is added in post-position both to individual nouns and to
nounal word-groups of various status, rendering the same essential semantics of appurtenance in the broad
sense of the term. Thus, within the expression of the genitive in English, two subtypes are to be recognized: the
first (principal) is the word genitive; the second (of a minor order) is the phrase genitive. Both of them are hot
inflexional, but particle case-forms.
The described particle expression of case may to a certain extent be likened to the particle expression of the
subjunctive mood in Russian (Иртеньева, 40]. As is known, the Russian subjunctive particle бы not only can
be distanced from the verb it refers to, but it can also relate to a lexical unit of non-verb-like nature without los-
ing its basic subjunctive-functional quality. Cf:. Если бы не он. Мне бы такая возможность. Как бы не так.
From the functional point of view the English genitive case, on the whole, may be regarded as subsidiary to
the syntactic system of prepositional phrases. However, it still displays some differential points in its functional
meaning, which, though neutralized in isolated use, are revealed in broader syntagmatic collocations with
prepositional phrases.
One of such differential points may be defined as "animate appurtenance" against "inanimate appurtenance"
rendered by a prepositional phrase in contrastive use. Cf.:
The people's voices drowned in the roar of the started engines. The tiger's leap proved quicker than the click
of the rifle.