The system theory of case and preposition in the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language

The teacher of Russian as a foreign language, perhaps, like no one else, knows what a case is in the eyes of foreign students. The teacher also has to overcome no less difficulties when he is given the task of giving a concrete and intelligible answer to all the many “why” that naturally appear in every beginner to learn the Russian language, especially if he is faced with this grammatical phenomenon for the first time, such as, for example, their Uzbek students.

Obviously, the point here is not at all in the variety of case forms and ending variants, but in understanding the essence of the case functioning mechanism. So, for example, it is not entirely clear why, after the word “no” and in some cases with the negative form of the verb, only the genitive and not some other case are used? Why is the preposition never before the nominative case, while the prepositional is never used without it, the other cases, as you know, allow for double use? Why is the genitive used in the designation of the date? Why is age conveyed by the dative case design? Why are both options quite correct - sorry for the girl and sorry for the girl; Are they equal and is there a difference between them? Why are the so-called causal relationships expressed in one case using the genitive case with a preposition from (for example, from fear, from cold, from grief, etc.), in another - in the same case, but with the preposition c (with shame, with laughter, sorrow, etc.), in the third - in forms of the same genitive, but with an excuse because (due to bad weather, because of someone, because of illness), in the fourth - with what is correct with the pretext under (agree with the pressure of someone, under pain of punishment, etc.) or without it (say something wrong), in the fifth - prepositional with the pretext (To say anything in the hearts and furious in his anger, and so on. P.), In the sixth ...? Finally, why, why is the case necessary, and is it even necessary if other languages do well without it?Unable to give clear and precise answers to these and similar questions, the technique often, sometimes intuitively, follows the path of finding the most successful methods for presenting educational material and determining the sequence of its presentation in the hope that the student of the Russian language himself, like us in childhood, he will be able to properly summarize the proposed material, catch, guess, "what is the matter". This way seems to be simple and not without meaning at all, since, to some extent, it allows the student to form his own opinion about a particular use of a specific case word form, and then, perhaps, about the case itself and its other meanings. At the same time, it is obvious that this simplicity is only apparent, because there is no guarantee that this judgment will be correct, adequate and will not cause other, deeper misconceptions about the case functions, since in the vast majority of cases the demonstration of phenomena cannot and should not replace explanations of the essence of these phenomena themselves.

The reason for this state of affairs lies, apparently, not so much in the imperfection of the methodology of teaching the Russian language, and especially not in the limitation of our knowledge about the peculiarities of using specific case forms, but in the interpretation of this long-known information, i.e. in flaws in the field of theoretical studies of the case category. In other words, the modern teaching methodology does not have at its disposal such a description of cases as would allow the teacher to show, and the student, in turn, to see the system in a whole variety of case uses - a single whole. From this, the desire to find an answer to at least some of the questions that arise during our daily work becomes understandable. Further, the author sets out the purely theoretical principles of modern systemic linguistics and the modern case theory created within its framework, which served as the basis for the new approach to interpreting the case for educational purposes proposed below.

Nominative case (Именительный падеж). Despite the fact that when working with this case no particular difficulties arise, its syntactic and semantic functions should nevertheless be clearly indicated. In the concept of nominative case, such concepts as: a) subject are closely interconnected. b) the subject of the message is the subject of speech; c) predicand - the subject of thought; d) the main protagonist of the event is the agent. We designate the initiator of the action with the symbol S1 (first subject).

Accusative case (Винительный падеж). The first of the indirect cases, as you know, develops the accusative case .. Before the appearance of the accusative form in the language, the description of the event in which the subject’s action causes the object to appear, be or be in a certain state was a text consisting of two messages constructed according to the “Who + active verb "and" What + a stative verb ". Moreover, the text describing such events had the form of a pair of atomic sentences, for example:

Человек гасит. Свеча гаснет;

Человек сушит. Одежда сохнет;

Человек кипятит. Вода кипит;

It is quite obvious that texts of such a structure can be shortened without prejudice to the transmitted information: the speaker in this case must name the subject (S1), his action as the cause of the event, and the object (O1) that the action is aimed at, relying on the listener himself will be able to guess the consequence of the event.In other words, it has become possible to transmit content, previously expressed in a text consisting of two minimal messages, in one message, which is a common sentence with a direct addition in the form of an accusative case:

Человек гасит. Свеча гаснет. — Человек гасит свечу;

Человек сушит. Одежда сохнет. — Человек сушит одежду;

Человек кипятит. Вода кипит. — Человек кипятит воду;

As a result, a shorter statement is created, consisting of one message, although of a more complex structure, in which there is not one, but two topics -the main (I. p.) аnd secondary (V. p.).