Typological category of case

1.6 Typological category of case

The system of grammatical forms indicating the syntactic relations of nouns (or pronouns) is usually treated as the category of case, in other words, case is a grammatical form which takes part in the formation of the paradigm of nouns (or pronouns). Grammarians seem to be divided in their opinions as to the case system of the English nouns. The most common view is that they have only two case: common (subject) and possessive (genitive) cases. The common case is characterized by a zero morpheme (suffix) e.g. child, boy, student, ir. and the possessive case by the indexing is and its phonetic variants as [s] and [z].

The Uzbek бош келишиги (common or subject case) corresponds in meaning and function to the English common case both of them are unmarked member of the case opposition and perform similar syntactic function in the sentence structure.

English common case and other five cases of Uzbek are marked members of the case opposition in both languages. The English possessive case is marked by the stiffly is which can sometimes be substituted by the preposition of (e.g. my father’s room, the room of may father) and therefore is sometimes called of – genitive – case. This case denotes possession of a thing or a person and in Uzbek it has its correspondence in the Uzbek караткич келишиги which is expressed by the case ending suffix num.

Dealing with notion of possession one should keep in mind that in Uzbek this category may be expressed not only by the nouns but also their antecedents in the pleonastic phrase such as менинг опамб сизнинг паспортингизю. In this case we have to face the problem of redundancy and often try to avoid it using the modified noun only which contains the possessive suffix. e.g. опам кeлди. In this case the suffix of possession can be rendered in English and in Russian by means of special possessive pronouns. e.g. My sister came. Моя сестра пришла.

Meaning and functions of the other Uzbek cases may be denoted in Uzbek either by means of prepositions or by word order. For instance the meaning and function of the Uzbek тушум келиши is expressed in Uzbek by means of the case ending – ши which denotes the object acted upon and it may be expressed in English by means of word order which is characterized in this language to be very strict in comparison with Russian or Uzbek (e.g. курдим кузингни колдим балога, кайга борайин энди давога? – Видел я твои очи черные (и заболел) куда мне теперь идти на лечение?) Some English grammarians O. Curme, M. Doutschbein recognize word order in English as dative case.

Dealing with this case one has to keep in mind the structure of the sentence i.e. the word order in the sentences of the comparing languages – sov (in Uzbek e.g. мен укамни курдим) and svo (in English I saw my brother»)

The Uzbek урин пайт келишиги denotes he place of the thing or a person in the space and it can be rendered in English by means of prepositions at, in, an, by, over, above, among, between, behind etc. (e.g.У:китоб жавонда. The book is in the bookcase.) It should be kept in mind that most of the English preposition may contain (more) additional meaning denoting the place of the thing or a person. (сu in – мчи-behind‑орқасида, between‑орасида, under‑остида, etc).

The Uzbek жуналиш келишиги denotes the direction of an action performed by means of the case ending‑га. It can be rendered in English also by means of prepositions to, at, into, etc. e.g. V(йигит) мактаб – га кетди. He went to school. У қиз менга қаради. She looked at me.

Чиқиш келишиги of Uzbek nouns denotes the beginning point of the action denoted by the verb. It can be rendered in English by means of preposition from, out of, from under, etc. e.g.:У(қиз) Лондон-дан келди. She came from London.У(йигит) сумкаси-дан қулқопларини олди. He took his gloves out of his bag.

1.7 Typological category of gender

The typological category of gender consists of the notions of natural (biological sex and the grammatical (formal) gender. The connection of this category with the natural sex is in the animals and birds. It is displayed by the nouns and pronouns in English. (But in Russian it can also expressed by the adjectives and the past simple tense forms of the verbs.) Most of the Uzbek grammar books do not contain any information about the category of gender of Uzbek nouns, because the authors consider Uzbek nouns not to have this category at all.

In accordance with their lexical meanings the nouns of the comparing nouns may be classed as belonging to the masculine, feminine and neuter genders. Names of male beings are usually masculine (e.g.: man, husband, boy, son, nephew, bull, ox, ram(whether), cock, stallion – ота, уғил, эркак, ҳукиз, буқа, новвос, қучқор, хуроз, айғир) and names of female beings are feminine (e.g.: woman, lady, girl, daughter, wife, niece, cow heifer(ғунажин), ewe [ju:] (совлиқ), hen, mare‑ауол, хоним, қиз(бола), қиз (фарзанд), хотин, сигир, ғунажин, соблиқ, макиуон, байтал).All other nouns are said to be neuter gender (e.g.:pencil, flower, rain, bird, sky-қалам, гул, уомғир, парранда, қуш, осмон).

Gender finds its formal expression in the replacement of nouns by the personal pronouns in the mind person singular, i.e., she, it.

However there some nouns in English which may be treated as either makes or females. e.g: friend, cousin, doctor, neighbor, worker, etc. The same can be said about the Uzbek terms of kinship e.g.: жиян, қариндош, холавачча, қуда, қушни, табиб, ишчи. They are said to be of common (neuter) gender. When there is no need to make distinction of sex the masculine pronoun is used for these nouns.

There are three ways of expressing the category of gender in the comparing languages: morphological, syntactical and lexical. Morphological way of expressing the category of gender is realized by adding suffixes of gender to the stem of the word. It is a highly developed way of expressing gender in Russian by means of suffixes ending in: a) consonants to be masculine, e.g.: дом, стол, праздник; b) vowels as – a, – я to be feminine. e.g.: мама, старуха, тетя; c) vowels-o, – e to be neuter. e.g.: ружъуо, море, окно и т.п.

English has the only suffix – ess which is used to denote feminine gender.e.g.: host-ess, actr-ess, waitr-ess, princ-ess, lion-ess, and tiger-ess. Feminine gender in Uzbek may often be expressed by means of the suffix- a which is supposed to be of Arabic origin e.g.: – раис‑а, вазир‑а, шоир‑а, муаллим‑а, котиб‑а etc.

In order denote the gender syntactic way is also possible. In this case different kinds of combinations of words are formed in which adjunct word (modifier) usually denotes the sex of the head word. e.g.: man servant – қарол, amid servant‑оксоч, boy friend-ўғил бола уртоқ, girl friend-қиз бола ўртоқ, tom cat‑еркак мушук, tabby cat‑урғочи мушук, he-wolf‑еркак бўри, she wolf‑урғочи бўри, he goat‑така, she goat‑она ечки, etc. As is seen from these examples English gender denoted by a syntactic combination (man servant she goat can be expressed in Uzbek both by syntactically and lexically, (қарол, она ечки).

In most cases gender can be expressed lexically, i.e. by the stem of the noun only. e.g.: father‑ота, uncle‑амаки, niece – (қиз) жиян, sister-in-law‑келин, lord‑жаноб, also names of animals, such as mare‑бия, tiger – (арка) йўлбарс, ram-қўчқор, etc. Names of people can also denote the gender of the person who owns this name. e.g.: Arthur, Christopher, John – Аҳмаджон, Баҳодир, Шаҳобиддин denoting male being and Mary, Christine, Nelly, – Сайера, Мехринисо, Гулоим, etc.

Nouns denoting various kinds of vessels (ship, boat, yacht, life-raft), the noun `car`, as well as the names of countries are sometimes referred to as feminine gender, i.e. by means of `she`. This fact is usually called personification. e.g.:

a. Sam joined the famous whaler `Globe`. She was a ship on which any young man would be proud to sail.

b. England prides herself with her greenness and tidiness.

Such nouns as masculine gender. Nouns like `nature, country, mercy, faith, hope, modesty` are used as feminine gender.