12 – 04.01.12
Test case & determiners
Case – system of inflectional endings which mark the function of element in the structure it contains
Janek ugryzł psa ← Janek performs the action
Nom
nominative case
Janka ugryzł pies ← Dog performs the action, Janek is affected by action
Acc Nom
Accusative case
Pies ugryzł Janka
ENGLISH
Personal pronouns distinguish 3 cases:
nominative case – associated with the function of the subject
he loves her
Accusative case – associated with the function of the object
she loves him
Genitive case
he, him – 3rd person sing, male
he – nominative case ← it functions as the subject
him – accusative case ← it functions as the object
she, her – 3rd sing, famine
she – nom - subject
her – acc – object
Subject pronouns – personal pronouns in nominative case
Object pronouns – personal pronouns in the accusative case
Genitive pronouns – very often used to denote possession (have, belong, 's) - that's why
genitive case = possessive case
possessive pronouns
my mine
your yours
^ used in different places in the sentence
my, your – almost always used as determiners → they are part of the noun Phrase
[My house] is big
My – determiner of house
[]NP
This house is [mine]
Mine functions as NP
my, your – possessive adjective (=possessive determiner / dependent possessive pronouns)
mine, yours – possessive pronoun ( independent possessive pronouns)
When it comes to lexical nouns
There's no difference in the form between accusative and nominative cases
She loves him
Mary loves John – John is marked with zero ending
Null/zero case endings
Common case – no case endings
Janek ugryzł psa – John bit the dog
Psa ugryzł Janek – The dog bit John ← incorrect translation
Acc Nom
In English position signals function.
W polskim mamy końcówki a w angielskim pozycja słowa
standard genitive inflectional ending is 's – saxon genitive = s-genitive
s-genitive: 's and: '
The students' notes were very useful
^apostrophe is s-genitive
apostrophe(') is called zero genitive (it's not pronounced)
when the nouns is sing and when the noun is plural but it doesn't end in s we add: 's
when it's plural we add: '
The boy's mother
The boys' mother
children – plural noun which does not end with s
The children's mother
Zero genitive with singular
Ancient Greek and Latin names that and in an s
Zeus' thunder
Socrates' followers
Modern names – always zero genitive
surnames – we can choose
Burn's – ppl who are unknown
Burns' – famous ppl
Mr Moses has a car
Mr Moses' car – we must use zero genetive with contemporary surnames if the last syllable both starts and finishes with s and inbetween the two s'es there are not more than 3 letters
For __'s sake
for goodness' sake
My sister-in-law has a car.
My sister-in-law's car
The passer-by made a statement
The passer-by's stetement
The teacher of music has a room
The teacher of music's room
Genitive affects whole phrase so it must go at the end of the NP
phrasal genitive = group genitive
Tom and Mary's children ← we treat Tom & Mary as a group, children belongs to both of them
Tom's and Mary's children ← we treat them separately
Genitive case cannot always be added:
The higher sth is on the gender scale the most frequently it will get genitive ending
+animate = alive ← it can be used in genitive case
-animate = not alive ← the use of the genitive will be strongly restricted or even impossible
Tom has a book → Tom's book
The book has a cover → The book's cover**
→ The cover of the book (this structure is not genitive case but it has genitive meaning) – of genitive
Tom +animate
book -animate
The dog has a tail → The dog's tail
Of genitive is used with -animate nouns
EXEPTIONS
1.
[The man over there] has a hat
The man over there's hat
s genitive is avoided if the noun contains a post head prepositional phrase which is not an of-phrase
The hat of the man over there
2.
Locative nouns – you can choose
London has got the past
London's
past
The past of the London
3.
Collective nouns – we can choose but
typically s
genitive in the collective understanding and of-genitive in the unit
understanding
The government has made a decision
The
government's decision
The decision of the government
Temporal nouns
The newspaper was published today
Today's
newspaper
The holiday lasted two weeks
A two week's
holiday
5.
Do not try to use it, if you remember it – OK, but if not, don't
try to create it
The life's purpose
The brain's
total weight
DOUBLE GENITIVE
the same noun is marked with genitive in two different ways
a picture of Tom's – picture belongs to him or he took it – one of Tom's pictures
a picture of Tom – he's on the picture
double genitive marks the author or the possession
I have one of your books
I have a book of yours
The meaning of double genitive affects the use of determiners
Definite determiner (the) cannot be used
**the picture of Tom's
exception when 'the' is used cataphoricly
The picture of Tom's which we were talking about
a patient of the doctor's
this dog of yours
all exercices
quirk – read about independent genetive = eliptical genetive = locative genitive
be able to do exercises on vertical page
quirk - use of subject pronouns and object pronouns
Chalker – key
Practical grammar of english