Similar features

It is quite natural for any beginner to look for something common between his mother tongue and the target language. Universal logical-grammar categories yield a very wide choice of structures which include also your native language structures.

Well, for instance, my students often referred to some textbooks that asserted that there were no grammar cases in the English language which really seemed very strange to me because GRAMMAR CASE shows relations between different objects in space and in time quite objectively and these facts are reflected this way or other in any language.

These relations between different objects (nouns) can be expressed either by the order of words, or by special case endings in a noun, or by prepositions, or by some special particles, or by some semantic features of certain verbs because this universal category of grammar case must be manifested by all means – otherwise we will not understand each other in any language.

For example, if we want to show a relation between some initial point and final point in space by such a phrase as “from Russia to Vietnam” – this phrase will find its reflection in any language with the help of prepositions, or particles (whatever you call them), or by some other means. In Japanese it will sound like “Rusia kara Vietnam made”, in Chinese like “cong Eluosi dao Vietnam”, in Russian like “ot Rossii do Vietnama” and so on.

In some languages like the Russian language these relations can be expressed without any prepositions at all, only with the help of endings, or sometimes in combination with a preposition and a change of an ending, or sometimes only with a preposition without any change of noun endings. A famous example of Anton Chekhov (Russian writer) shows these relations very clearly: “Golova golove golovu probyot y budesh bez golovy” where three cases in the word “golova” which means “head” consecutively expressed only by grammar endings (Nominative – Dative – Accusative) and only the last ending in this row shows the Genitive case in combination with preposition “bez” (without). The previous example “ot Rossii do Vietnama” also shows this combination of prepositions with the change of endings in the words Rossia (Nominative case) and Vietnam (Nominative case).

The English language nouns have no grammar endings except those of plurality (“s”). Two heads are better than a head – this examples shows that more than one head is better than a head (one head). So we can show a singular or a plural form by these means but we cannot show the case relations.

Case relations in English are expressed either by prepositions, or by the order of words or by some semantic features of a verb. So for Genitive they often use “of”, for Dative “to”, for Instrumental “by” or “with” etc. There are no special prepositions for Nominative and Accusative – so to avoid ambiguity the fixed order of words is obligatory (The cat ate the bat? The bat ate the cat? ).

Sometimes the ambivalent features of a verb may confuse you but the semantic situation based on common sense helps you to understand in what case this or that nouns is used, for instance: Send this man a letter. We understand that “this man” is in Dative case, “a letter” in Accusative. If we say: Send this man on an errand, then we understand that “this man” is in accusative.
The same about “Lend this man some money” and “Lend this man to me” (The latter phrase might be used in the age of Slavery).

So what am I driving at? All grammatical and logical categories including the CATEGORY OF CASE are universal and common for all languages – the difference will be only in forms of expressions, the gist will remain the same.

This logical approach based on COMMON SENSE is really more efficient and more conducive to acquisition of any foreign language than routine repetition and cramming.

Instructor/Trainer Alexander Khodovets