GENITIVE-NEGATIVE AS THE UNIVERSAL FORM IMPLEMENTING THE ‘ABSENCE’ CONCEPT

Abstract

Background. The article deals with the problem of a case category, case typology, and partial case meanings definition which is still topical. Its solution has been proposed by L. Tenier, W. Chafe, Ch. Fillmore and other scientists. The history of linguistics testifies to the fact that even Panini in his Aṣṭādhyāyī paid attention to verb-noun ratios. The case category (case – from the Latin casus < from the Greek word πτόσισ ‘fall’) is the representation of cognitive role of a name in the syntactic construction. 
 The purpose of the study is to demonstrate universality of the specific case segment – Genetive of Negation – in the context of model structures implementing the ‘Absence’ concept. Objectives are as follows: 1) to analyze the current case concepts; 2) to define reasons why case forms are used in their relation to the expressed meanings; and 3) to generate models with genitive of negation within their structure.
 Methods. A continuous sampling method has been applied to search and accumulate the required study units. A comparative method has been applied to define integral and differential characteristics of typical models in different languages. Certain elements of a comparative historical method have helped demonstrate universality of cognitive and model structures expressing the absence concept. A structural method has become the basic one while developing the models representing actual mental constructs.
 Discussion. In the study, we focused on the Genitive Case forms, i.e. on the formal Genitive Case as well as its involvement in the structures able to express absence meaning of somebody or something. Fundamentally, the Genitive Case forms in the Ukrainian and English languages are universal not only to express relation of a person/subject, called either noun or pronoun, to some another object of reality but also to express negation. In grammars, such a form is assumed to be termed as genitive-negative. 
 Conclusions. We believe that any case meaning inclusive of Genitive of Negation semantics is a result of mental activity of the specific native speakers. In the process of historical development, a meaning adapts a number of implementation forms to itself. A language remains those ones being the most reasonable from the viewpoint of articulation as well as cognitive acceptance of the image-concept-meaning-form phenomenon by a community. The capacity to agree words in a speech flow, i.e. capacity to adjust word forms to each other according to the laws of one or another language depending upon specific semantic situations is the genetic feature of human mind able to transform into verbal / lingual experience. The situation is also typical for the studied segment of the forms and meanings. All components of the listed models, supplementing a form of Genitive Case of a noun or pronoun, make together Genitive of Negation forms. Such structures are universal for the two studied languages (i.e. Ukrainian and English) while expressing the ‘Absence’ concept. At the same time, we observe universal and original Genetive of Negation models.