He told me a story

I was told a story.

Alongside purely grammatical definitions of the category of voice there may be other approaches to the interpretation of this category. Thus, in [Кобрина 2007] voice is defined as one of the forms of intralingistic varation in the content of the utterance that is not directly related to actual phenomena of surrounding reality [Кобрина 2007: 91]. Needless to say, this definition fits the functional semantic paradigm and does not represent voice as a purely grammatical category. Since voice is realized by means of structural modifications (I sent the letter yesterday ÷ The letter was sent yesterday) and involves the change in the significance of the components of the sentence voice cannot help being a syntactic category. Narrower, voice can get its manifestation on the morphological level, by means of be+Ven. But voice can lead to a change in the categorization of the verb, from transitive to intransitive (He walked on ÷ He walked the horse). As the formation of the category of voice involves the interaction of three different levels of language structure voice must be ascribed the status of a semantic-syntactic-morphological category Кобрина 2007: 92-93].

Paul R. Kroeger in his ‘ Analyzing Grammar’ (2006) also interprets voice as a syntactic category, involving the change in grammatical relations which are reflected in the semantic roles assignment. He claims that voice is a traditional term for “alterations which alter the semantic role of the subject” [Kroeger 2006: 351] from agent to patient. This process is labeled as passivization. Since voice is a syntactic process P.R. Kroeger refers to an active or passive clause [Kroeger 2006: 271-272] rather than active or passive voice characteristics of the verb.

Thus there are two sides concerning the problem of the definition of the category of voice. On the one hand, this definition reflects linguistic understanding of the nature of this category: its direction towards the participants of the situation. On the other hand, definitions of the category of voice vary as linguists try to account for a wide range of linguistic facts falling under this category (interpreted in a very wide, logical, sense) and, hence, they see the semantic, syntactic, and functional factors that turn this category into a means of cognition.

v The number of voices in modern English

The vast majority of the authors of English scientific grammars seem to recognize only two voices in English: the Active and the Passive. But not all the grammarians share this opinion. Thus the total number of voices in different systems fluctuates form 0 to 4, 5, or even 6. Thus, in structural grammar (e.g., H. Whitehall, M. Joos) “the so-called passive voice is best regarded as a word-order device”. Quite in line with this statement does Martin Parrot, the author of ‘Grammar for English Language Teachers’, make the remark: he avoids the use of the term ‘passive voice’ because it is used to mean different things. Instead, the term ‘passive constructions’ is applied to the presentation of this sphere of grammar [Parrot 2001: 287]. In some other grammatical systems the number of voices exceeds the traditional two voices. For instance, H. Poutsma speaks of the existence of the reflexive voice in English, formed by means of self -pronouns in combination with the verb. According to H. Poutsma, the English reflexive voice has two functions due to the significance of the reflexive pronouns it contains:

(a) This pronoun may have the full significance of an ordinary non-prepositional object, or of the substantival constituent of a prepositional object or adverbial adjunct, occupying a particular position only in so far as it denotes the same person or thing as the subject: He got into bed, covered himself up warm and fell asleep. In the case of the pronoun representing a single non-prepositional object the verb may be styled as transitive reflexive.

(b) The pronoun, although fulfilling syntactically the function of a non-prepositional object, is particularly devoid of semantic significance, in as much as it does not indicate that the activity expressed by the verb is directed to the person or thing denoted by the subject or any other person or thing. The verb is therefore semantically intransitive: Did you enjoy yourself at the party? It may in this case be termed intransitive reflexive.

In Russian linguistics opinions also differ concerning the existence of the Reflexive Voice in English. Thus, some linguists (V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova, L.L. Ioffic) are of the opinion that in Modern English there exists the Reflexive voice. They give a detailed analysis of this linguistic phenomenon in their Theoretical Grammar of English (1956). They distinguish two meanings of the Reflexive voice – the Reflexive proper and the middle-Reflexive or just middle meaning of the Reflexive voice.

We speak about the Reflexive meaning proper when the doer of the action and the object are one and the same person, e.g.: to warm oneself, to hide oneself, to hurt oneself. Here the doer performs an action, and the object of the action is the doer himself.

When we deal with the middle reflexive meaning, that means that the action is within the subject itself, it is not directed towards any object at all. There are two types of the middle reflexive meaning with the subject, denoting a person:

1) The action is limited within the sphere of the subject, it concerns some physical changes in the state of the person, his movement in space, e.g.: to stretch oneself – changing the position of the person in the outer world is conveyed.

2) The form of the voice expresses an inner state of the subject, e.g.: to enjoy oneself.

There are opponents of this view among Soviet linguists as well. For instance, A.I. Smirnitsky and B.A. Ilyish do not include the Reflexive voice into the voice system in English, because they don’t consider the combination of the verb with a reflexive pronoun to be part of an analytical paradigm. The point is that the combinations in question don’t form a paradigm because they are not opposed to the Active voice either formally or semantically. Besides, there is another important detail: the combination of a verb and a reflexive pronoun may not have the reflexive meaning, and vice versa – a verb without a reflexive pronoun can have a reflexive meaning, e.g.: I washed, I dressed, etc. A.I. Smirnitsky and B.A. Ilyish are of the opinion that if we take such sentences as She washed her child and She washed herself – the difference between these two is not the difference in the voices but the difference in the objects. Though in the second sentence the object is expressed by a reflexive pronoun, it does not make a special form of the verb, i.e. the form of the Reflexive voice. Moreover, if we recognize the combination V + reflexive pronoun as an analytical form, it would imply the existence of such verbal categories as person, number, gender formed in a special “analytical” way.

Concerning the reflexive meaning in general there exists an opinion that it can be identified only in context, that this meaning is not something constant, but something occurring in context, in a certain situation, that actually we deal with the Active Voice, only having a somewhat unusual meaning, when a reflexive pronoun is used as an object, and this reflexive pronoun has a double nature: it may perform the function of a form word (or auxiliary word) or it may be a separate, independent word.

Alongside the Reflexive Voice such voices as the Reciprocal and the Middle are distinguished. Here belong formations like, e.g.: to greet each other, to love each other, to praise each other, etc. The problem is similar to that of the Reflexive Voice. Does the group each other (and the group one another) make part of the analytical verb form, i.e. is it an auxiliary element used for forming a special voice of the verb, the Reciprocal Voice, or is it always a secondary part of the sentence?

Prof. Ilyish is of the opinion that the grounds for assuming the existence of a special Reciprocal Voice are weaker than those for assuming the existence of a Reflexive Voice. Therefore, if we reject the Reflexive voice, we will certainly reject the Reciprocal Voice. If we accept the former, the question about the Reciprocal Voice will remain open.

The Middle (Medial, or Neuter) Voice includes such sentences as The door opened, The paper burnt, The water boiled, The conference resumed, The college was filling up. They may be considered opposed to such sentences as I opened the door. I burnt the paper. I boiled the water. We resumed the conference, etc. B.A. Ilyish points out that there may be several approaches to the solution of this problem. Within one possible approach the semantic differences are taken into account that leads to the recognition of the Middle Voice. The other approach is focused on the grammatical markers of the grammatical category. Since there are no formal changes the verb is recognized to be used in the Active voice. The active verb-form is the unmarked member of the opposition, and the Active Voice has an extensive meaning [Ильиш 1971: 120-121]. This line of argument received a significant support among linguists. On the whole, objections put against the wide approach to the category of voice boil down to the following arguments: (a) a number of verbs express the “reflexive” and “reciprocal” meaning without the corresponding pronouns: He always washes in cold water. Kiss and be friends. H. Sweet calls these verbs passivals; (b) words V + each other are words belonging to different lexemes. They have different lexical and grammatical meaning; (c) variants of a verb lexeme in English may belong to different subclasses: transitive or intransitive. The problem of transitivity makes the thing more complicated as it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a rigid borderline between the two subclasses. It is more reasonable to speak of a transitive or intransitive use of verbs: He stood at the corner. ÷ He stood the box in the corner. There are also the so-called objective verbs in English depending on whether the verb can accept an object or not.

Actually the problem of the number of voices in English is closely connected with the problem of the status of this category, i.e. whether it is a purely morphological category, or a syntactic category, or a semantic category, or, probably, the combination of all of them. The category of voice is another vivid example of the interplay of semantic and formal factors in language each of which can be considered prevailing in linguistic description. The awareness of the dominating character of the formal criterion made B.A. Ilyish change his position from the recognition of five voices in the 1948 edition of his ‘ Theoretical Grammar’ to two voices in the 1971 edition [Ильиш 1948: 195; Ильиш 1971: 122].

The desire to follow the semantic criterion and describe all the complexity of language forms and uses lead grammarians to very broad interpretations and make them leave the domain of pure grammar. Thus, N.A. Kobrina, N.N. Boldyrev, A.A. Khudyakov, the authors of Theoretical English grammar (2007), contend that the category of voice is a complex semantic, syntactic, and morphological category. This status is ascribed to the category of voice as it employs an enormous variety of linguistic means of all the strata of language structure. This conception enables the authors to arrive at the conclusion that voices cannot be defined outside the sentence structure (cf.: He opened the door. ÷ The door opened.). Thus, the category of voice in their conception includes the Active, Passive, Reflexive, Reciprocal, Middle (The book reads with interest), and Causative voices (He made the horse run, other auxiliaries for the category of voice are have, get, compel, force), thus numbering 6 voices all in all [Кобрина 2007: 93-107]. But it’s worth reminding that this type of description is typical for the functional paradigm when a category is interpreted as a functional semantic field. Working within this paradigm, linguists explore the material belonging to different language levels in case it expresses the same content. Grammar is only one of the levels of language structure. Thus, in a grammatical description attention should be drawn to the system of morphological criteria (grammatical forms organized in opposition), which are the only tangible and reliable markers of a grammatical category. Grammarians point out that voice as a grammatical category demands that the semantic differences find their systemic formal expression. And these forms should be organized in opposition [Гуревич 2003: 28]. As soon as the unit of linguistic description loses the systemic character of a grammatical category, the object of analysis undergoes a radical alteration and we are exploring the semantic content of different structures but not a grammatical category.

v Problems set by the constituents of the passive construction

(a) First, grammarians differ in treating the formal side of the passive construction. Thus, some linguists name only the verb to be as part of the passive construction. G. Curme extends this list and singles out get -passive, become -passive, come-to -passive/ get-to -passive; passive of experience (I had my right leg hurt) and passive after causatives (I had a new suit made). Get and become can be found in O. Jespersen’s ‘ Essentials of English Grammar’. G.N. Vorontsova turns down become but insists on get. By way of objecting to this approach it should be borne in mind that (1) become and get retain their lexical meaning; (2) if we stick to the get/become view point, then there should be several passive voices.

In this respect it stands to reason that M. Parrot in his grammar book differentiates between several passive constructionsand several passive auxiliaries. He introduces standard passive constructions with be and get as auxiliaries when the clause is about the recipient of the action but not its agent, e.g. I’ve been sacked, ‘Turandot’ was composed by Puccini, The conference was badly organized, The whole house was/ got flooded [Parrot 2001: 288-289]. Different from standard passive constructions are causative passive constructions. In causative constructions “the object is the recipient of an action – the subject is in some way responsible for what happened, he didn’t do it”, e.g. He got me sacked. The auxiliaries used in causative passive constructions include get and had with a slight difference in meaning [Parrot 2001: 292-293].

(b) The problems are raised in connection with the second constituent, i.e. Participle II. The fact is that Participle II has a passive meaning not only when used with be, but also when used alone. Thus, Participle I seems to have 2 passive opposites: writing ÷ being written and written. Participle II has also a perfective meaning (значение завершенности). Thus, Participle I seems to be opposed to two perfect opposites: fading ÷ having faded, faded. The perfective meaning of Participle II is felt in terminative verbs and the passive meaning in transitive or objective verbs.

D.A. Shteling gives a profound description of the peculiar character of Participle II. He makes a remark about the nature of Participle II that affects the meaning of the passive construction. Participle II does not express an action itself but the consequence related to it [Штелинг 1996: 170-171].

v Different meanings expressed by the construction be+Participle II

Interpretations of the meaning of the construction be + Participle II vary from one grammar book to another one. L.S. Barkhudarov and D.A. Shteling treat this construction as passive in all cases due to the formal characteristics.

Contrary to this approach, A.I. Smirnitsky notices the difference between two sentences: This table is made of wood and He is loved by them. The first of the examples This table is made of wood has no equivalent with an active meaning. That enables the linguist to draw the conclusion that is made does not make an analytical form of the Passive voice. It is a compound nominal predicate. But in the sentence Tables are usually made of wood the verb-form are made is an analytical form of the Passive voice which can be proved by the existence of the parallel construction We always make tables of wood. In line with this logic there should be mentioned the notion of statal passive introduced by H. Poutsma, or even the distinction between passive of action (пассив действия) and passive of state (пассив состояния, или стативный пассив). Analyzing the constructions under consideration M.Y. Blokh also points to the role of context that can have the “statalizing” and “processualizing” effect.

Cf.: The fence is painted. ÷ The fence is painted light green.

I was mistaken. ÷ I was often mistaken for my friend Otto [Блох 1983: 184].

But mention should be made here of the peculiar nature of Participle II which was observed by D.A. Shteling. He writes that Participle II reflects an action as a state, or in other words, property of some object [Штелинг 1996: 127]. This remark makes it explicit that semantics is too an unreliable factor in a grammatical analysis and the semantic analysis no matter how intricate it may be will take a scholar far away from grammatical observables.

In this respect it’s helpful to refer to L.S. Barkhudarov’s and I.P.Ivanova’s position on this problem. They insist on the vital importance of formal markers, which are suggestive of a passive construction. The only exception is made when participial adjectives are used (interested, surprised, etc.).

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