The problem of the category of article determination

1.1. Nouns denote things and other entities presented as substances: beauty, progress, etc.

The only category of nouns, which is generally accepted, is the category of number. Many scholars think that the notion of case applies to English pronouns, but not to nouns. Gender distinctions are not marked morphologically.

Nouns are related by conversion with verbs: to walk — a walk; an eye — to eye, and with adjectives: native. — a native.

Nouns are premodified by nouns in the possessive and in the common case:

the car's roof (individual characteristics)

the car roof (general characteristics)

Noun groups of the type N+N (stone, wall, ear roof, speech sound), often called stone-wall constructions, take an intermediary position between compound nouns and noun phrases. Multicomponental structures are typical of newspaper and scientific style: ambulance staff pay dispute.

1.2. Nouns fall into several subclasses which differ as to their semantic and grammatical .properties: common —. proper, concrete — abstract, countable — uncountable (count — non-count, count — mass), animate — inanimate, personal — non-personal (human — non-human).

Lexico-semantic variants of nouns may belong to different subclasses: paper — a paper, etc.

The class of nouns can be described as a lexico-grammatical field. Nouns denoting things constitute centre (nucleus) of the field. Nouns denoting processes, qualities, abstract notions (predicate nouns) are marginal, peripheral elements of the field.

2.1. The category of number is proper to count nouns only. Usually words which lack a certaiii category, have only one form, that of the weak member of the opposition. Non-counts may be singular or plural. So subclasses of non-count nouns constitute a lexico-grammatical opposition "singular only — plural only": snow, joy, news — contents, tongs, police.

The general meaning revealed through the grammatical opposition a book — books is number, or quantity, or "oneness — more-than-oneness". The general meaning revealed through the lexico-graininatical opposition is “discreteness — non- discreteness". The opposition “discreteness non-discreteness” is semantically broader than the opposition "oneness — more-than-oneness". It embraces both countable and uncountable nouns. Singular presents the noun-referent as a single indiscrete entity. Plural presents the referent as a multiplicity of discrete entities (separate objects - houses; objects consisting of separate parts — scissors; various types — wines, etc.).

2.2. Case is a morphological category which has a distinct syntactic significance, as it denotes relations of nouns towards other words in the sentence. Languages of synthetic structure have a developed case-system. Languages of analytical structure lack these morphological variants. In English the only case, which is marked morphologically, is the genitive (possessive), the other "case meanings" being expressed by word-order and prepositions. Positional and prepositional cases are very often analysed alongside of the inflexional case, and the case-system may look as follows:

John came in. (Nominative)

John's friend, a friend of John. (Genitive)

/ gave John a letter (gave it to John). (Dative)

/ saw John there. (Accusative) It is obvious that position is a syntactic property.

Prepositional phrases cannot be treated as analytical case-forms, as prepositions preserve Ihe lexical meaning. Prepositions may precede the Genitive case: at the. baker's. Besides, analytical forms are opposed to synthetic forms. Prepositional phrases and synthetic forms are often synonymous: the decision of the government — the. governments decision.

So there are only two cases (common and genitive). But the two-case theory is also open to criticism:

- 's is not a typical case inflexion. It is used both in the singular and in the,plural: man's — men's. It can be added to adverbs: today's lecture, and to phrases: Mary and John's father. Prof. G.N.Vorontsova does not recognize case as a morphological category and treats -'s as a postposition, a sign of syntactic dependence, a syntactic form-word resembling a preposition.

Though there are arguments for the recognition of the genitive case (A.I.Sminiitsky), peculiarities of -'s cannot be denied.

Attempts have also been made to combine the case systems of nouns and pronouns, thus recognizing three cases (Nominative John, he; Genitive John's, his; Accusative John, him). As stated be M.Y.Blokh, the categories of the noun-substitute should reflect Ihe categories of the noun, and not vice versa.

There is also a semantico-syntactic approach to case, where case is treated as semantic relationship (Ch.Fillmore).

Different semantic relations of the noun and the verb are treated as deep (semantic) cases, which have different forms of expression in the surface (syntactic) structure. Thus sentences:

1) John opened the, door with the. key.

2) Tfie door was opened with the. key (by John).

3) The. key opened the door.

express the same semantic relations between the action and its doer (agent), its object and its instrument.

3. Many scholars recognize the category of definiteness/iudefiniteness (article determination). Though the article is used as the morphological marker of the noun (a walk), it can hardly be treated as a word-morpheme. The position of the article may be occupied by other words (demonstrative and possessive pronouns, etc.). Words, which have a distribution including the article position, are called determiners. The role of determiners is to specify the range of reference of the noun by making it definite or indefinite.

Meaningful absence of the article, or zero article, presupposes generalization.

In discussing the use of the articles it is essential to distinguish between specific, or particular reference, and generic reference (R.Quirk et a].):

The telephone is broken. (Specific reference)

The telephone is useful. (Generic reference)

The distinctions, which are important for countable nouns with specific reference, disappear with generic reference: 1.) A telephone is useful.

2) The, telephone, is useful.

3) Telephones are. useful.

The article plays an important role in structuring information. It is one of the means of distinguishing between facts already known (the theme) and new information (the rheme). The definite article is the marker of the theme, the indefinite article is the marker of the rheme.

Certain determiners (articles, demonstrative pronouns) can be used to show that a noim phrase is referentially equivalent to a previous noun-phrase: Students are free to select optional courses. The, options are popular. In such cases the article expresses co-reference, which is one of the means of sentence-connection.