The ways and means of time expressing in the Russian noun case system

In this work we present a systematic analysis of the ways and means of time expressions in the prepositional case system of Russian. The author examines the functional semantic variants of time expressions assigned to the each case from the point of view of their practical feasibility and compliance of case semantics. The system of prepositional-case means of expression of time begins with the Genitive case, that serves to indicate the date of the event, and ends with the Prepositional case, that involve ordinal numbers. The basic means of time expression in the prepositional-case system of Russian consist of Accusative and Prepositional cases, which are responsible for representation of actual time meanings in Russian. The Accusative forms в прошлый месяц, в этот год, в тот век are used as holistic units that are correlated with the quantitative indicators. The Prepositional forms в прошлом ме сяце, в две тысячи пятом году, во втором веке до н.э. represent the totality of forming them units (segments of time), within which a single action takes place. The transition from the Accusative case forms with the quantitative time values to the forms of Prepositional case, intended to refer complex temporary spaces, is connected with the transition from quantitative to quality indicators. For native speakers the nouns понедельник, вторник, среда, etc. (when referring to time) correspond to a single entity ( день ), so they are used them in the Accusative case. The perception of month names ( январь, февраль, март, etc.) connects not only the value of the order, but also the essential differences between them. So they are used in the Prepositional case, intended to indicate the place, or location. The nouns зима, лето, день, ночь, etc. represent natural processes that accompany the event: existence of lighting, weather, ambient temperature, condition of vegetation. In the position of adverbial modifier of time these lexemes are used in the Instrumental case, which is correlated with the method of action implementation: when? - этой зимой, этим летом,этим днём, этой но чью, etc. Using the prepositional-case forms of nouns in the position of adverbial modifiers or determinants the speaker gets the opportunity to describe the distribution of actions within the designated time period, and indicate the order of occurrence of this segment to the higher level units of time expression.