The category of Case

The category of case

Of the many case endings once used English has, in nouns, preserved only one, namely the -s of the genitive. Apart from the genitive relation, these grammatical relations are now indicated by the position of the noun with regard to the verb or preposition, or by means of inflectional prepositions, which have taken the plase of old inflectional endings, or often by the context alone, that is the context without the aid of word-order or inflectional preposition suggests the grammatical relation. In the genitive relation we still frequently employ the genitive ending-s, but employ also frequently the inflectional preposition of. There are now four cases, nominative, accusative, dative, genitive. The cases other than the nominative are called the oblique cases.

The category of case in English is expressed by the opposition of the possessive or genitive case to the common case having no featured from. The genitive of the plural form is not expressed phonetically. The term ' genitive' is more preferable than 'possessive' since not all the meanings of the genitive case express possession: yesterday's newspaper, a mile's distance. The category of case in English is not so simple as it might seem at first. There are at least 5 different theories on the nature of the category of case in English.