3. Category of Number

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to its singular form. The semantic difference of the oppositional members of the category of number in many linguistic works is treated traditionally: the meaning of the singular is interpreted as "one" and the meaning of the plural - as "many" ("more than one").

As the traditional interpretation of the singular and the plural mem­bers does not work in many cases, recently the categorial meaning of the plural has been reconsidered and now it is interpreted as the denotation of "the potentially dismembering reflection of the structure of the refer­ent" (correspondingly, the categorial meaning of the singular is treated as "the non-dismembering reflection of the structure of the referent").

The categorial opposition of number is subjected to the process of oppositional reduction. Neutralization takes place when countable nouns begin to function as Singularia Tantum nouns, denoting in such cases either abstract ideas or some mass material, e.g. On my birthday we always have goose: or when countable nouns are used in the func­tion of the Absolute Plural: The board are not unanimous on the ques­tion. A stylistically marked transposition is achieved by the use of the descriptive uncountable plural (The fruits of the toil are not always vis­ible) and the "repetition plural" (Car after car rushed past me).

4. Category of Case

The case meanings in English relate to one another in a peculiar, unknown in other languages, way: the common case is quite indiffer­ent from the semantic point of view, while the genitive case functions as a subsidiary element in the morphological system of English because its semantics is also rendered by the Common Case noun in prepositional collocations and in contact.

In the discussion of the case problem four main views advanced by different scholars should be considered: the "theory of positional cases", the "theory of prepositional cases", the "limited case theory", and the "postpositional theory".

According to the "theory of positional cases", the English noun distinguishes the inflectional genitive case and four non-inflectional, purely positional, cases - Nominative, Vocative, Dative, Accusative. The cardinal weak point of this theory lies in the fact that it mixes up the functional (syntactic) characteristics of the sentence parts and the morphological features of the noun.

The "theory of prepositional cases" regards nounal combinations with the prepositions in certain object and attributive collocations as morphological case forms: the Dative Case (to + N, for + N), the Genitive Case (of + N).

The "limited case theory" recognizes the existence in English of a limited case system whose members are the Genitive Case (a strong form) and the Common Case (a weak form).

The "postpositional theory" claims that the English noun in the course of its historical development has completely lost the morpho­logical category of case; that is why the traditional Genitive Case is treated by its advocates as a combination of a noun with a particle.

Taking into account the advantages of the two theories - the "limit­ed case theory" and the "postpositional theory" opens new perspectives in the treatment of the category of case. It stands to reason to regard the element -s / -es as a special case particle. Thus, according to the "particle case theory" the two-case system of the noun is to be recognized in Eng­lish: the Common Case is a direct case, the Genitive Case is an oblique case. As the case opposition does not work with all nouns, from the functional point of view the Genitive Case is to be regarded as subsidi­ary to the syntactic system of prepositional phrases.