Morphological structure of a word. Classification of Morphemes

1)The Theory of Positional Cases (Deutschbein):the unchangable forms of the noun may express different cases due to the functional positions occupied by the noun in the sentence. On the analogy of classical Latin grammar the E. noun can have nominative, vocative, dative & accusative cases, which are not inflectional, & the inflectional genitive case. E.g. the nominative case: The letter is here. (subject to a verb); the vocative case: (address) Are you ready, students?; the dative case: (indirect object to a verb) She gave the students some books; the accusative case: (direct object & also object to a preposition) The books were given by the teacher; the genitive case- The boy’s room is here. This theory can not be accepted, because most of the cases in it are not formed with the help of the morphemes, but only with the help of functional characteristics, which can’t be regarded as morphemes.
2) The Theory of Prepositional Cases It is also connected with the old school grammar teaching. Combinations of nouns with prepositions should be understood as morphological case forms. Here belong the dative case (to + noun, for + noun) & the genitive case (of + noun), it should follow from this that not only the of-, to- & for- phrases, but also all the other prepositional phrases in E. must be regarded as analytical phrases. As a result, the total number of such cases would become indefinitely large (Ilyish), besides prepositions can’t be morphemes.
3) The Limited Case Theory It is most broadly accepted among linguists at present.(formulated-Sweet, Jespersen, developed- Smirnitsky, Barkhudarov). It is based on the opposition of the possessive or genitive form as the strong member & the common, or “non-genitive” from as the weak member. It is shown in full with animate nouns, & is restricted with inanimate nouns.
4) Postpositional Theory (No-Case Theory) insists that the E. noun has completely lost the category of case in the course of its historical development. The view is advanced by G.N. Vorontsova.
1) the postpositional element -'s is loosely connected with the noun, as it is used not only with single nouns, but also with whole word-groups. E.g. Somebody else's daughter. The blonde I had been dancing with's name was Bernice. The girl in my class's mother.; 2) the 's can be attached to few nouns denoting living beings, in other cases the parallel prepositional construction is used.
Opposing this theory linguists consider the previous examples stylistically marked, the more self-dependent the construction with the case-sign 's, the stronger the stylistic colouring. Besides, according to statistical observation, the 's sign is attached to individual nouns in 96% of its textual occurrences.
Though the main meaning of the genitive case is possession, it undergoes modifications depending on the lex. meaning of the noun: John's house - John has a house; John's happiness - John is happy; John's smile - John is smiling. The meaning of possession is limited to nouns denoting animate things while the genitive of the nouns denoting lifeless things is metaphoric. E.g. the river's brink. Nouns denoting units of distance & time in the Genitive case do not express possession at all: a month's leave, a mile's distance.
Many grammarians find the Genitive polysemantic as it expresses: 1. possession: John's car - John has an car; 2. subject of the action: Mary's dream - Mary has a dream, or Mary dreams; Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the possessive genitive & the subjective genitive. 3. Adverbial Genitive: 2 hour's work – X works for 2 hours; 4. Objective Genitive: John's surprise - John was surprised or X surprised John. 5. Destination Genitive: children's room - room for children. In Mod.E. the Genitive & the of-phrase are synonyms & that's why they can be used side by side - the so called double genitive: e.g. a picture of gr&father's. The genitive can be absolute (independent) & conjoint (dependent). The dependent genitive precedes the head-word & may be of 2 kinds: 1) The specific genitive (indicating the owner, the doer, bearer of state): uncle's car, my sister's illness. It can be replaced by the -of-phrase (except proper names). The minister's speech - the speech of the Minister; Mary's table. 2) The classifying genitive (indicating quality of the class of similar objects): sheep's eyes, summer's day, a doll's face, mother's care. This genitive cannot be replaced by the of - phrase, but it may easily become a set-phrase.