Grammatical category of Voice

The category of voice occupies a peculiar place in the system of verbal categories because it reflects the direction of the process as regards the participants in the situation denoted by a syntactic construction. The form of the verb may show whether the agent expressed by the subject is the doer of the action or the recipient of the action. The ob­jective relations between the action and the subject or ob­ject of the action find their expression in language as the grammatical category of voice. Therefore, the category of voice reflects the objective relations between the action itself and the subject or object of the action.

The category of voice is realized through the opposi­tion active and passive voice.

The active form has the meaning of "non-passivity". It indicates that the action is directed from the subject or issues from the subject, thus the subject denotes the doer (agent) of the action.

The passive form expresses the reception of the action by the subject of the syntactic construction. It indicates that the action is directed towards the subject. Here the subject expresses a person or non-person who or which is the receiver of the action. It does not act, but is acted upon and therefore affected by the action of the verb.

The grammatical categories of voice is formed by the opposition of covert and overt morphemes. The active voice is formed by a zero marker: while the passive voice is formed by (be-ed). So the active voice is the unmarked one and the passive-marked. E.g.To ask- to be asked

From the point of view of some grammarians O. Jespersen, O. Curme, G. Vorontsova verbs get / become + Participle II are passive constructions. Khaimovich and Rogovskaya seem to be right when they say that in such constructions get / become always retain lexical meanings.

In comparison with Russian, the category of voice in English has a much broader representation as not only transitive but also intransitive objective verbs can be used in the passive voice. Another peculiarity of voice distinc­tions of English verbs consists in the fact that active forms often convey passive meanings.

The realization of the voice category is restricted be­cause of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitiv­ity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises six groups:

-Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;

-Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;

-Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may de­velop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;

-Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transi­tively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;

-Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;

-Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.

The majority of authors of English theoretical grammars seem to recognize only two voices in English: the active and the passive.

H. Sweet, O. Curme recognize two voices.

There are such terms, as inverted object, inverted subject and retained object in Sweet's grammar.

The inverted object is the subject of the passive construction. The inverted subject is the object of the passive constructions. The rat was killed by the dog. O. Jespersen calls it " converted subject ".

But in the active construction like: “The examiner asked me three questions” either of the object words may be the subject of the passive sentence. Words me and three questions are called retained objects.

There exist a big problem in connection with the voice identification in English is the problem of "medial" voices, i.e. the functioning of the voice forms in other than the pas­sive or active meanings. Some scholars admit the existence of middle, reflexive and reciprocal voices.

The category of voice
Active e.g. I often do it.	Passive e.g. It is often done.	Medial
Reflexive e.g. He washed and dressed (himself).	Reciprocal e.g. When they met, they kissed (each other)	Middle e.g. This dress washes well.

H. Poutsma besides the two voices mentioned above finds one more voice – reflexive which is expressed by the help reflexive pronouns. It expresses the verbal meaning of the action performed by the subject upon itself (the subject is both the agent and the recipient of the action at the same time). Poutsma transfers the system of the Greek grammar into the system of English.

B.A. Ilyish besides the three voices mentioned distinguishes two more:

- the reciprocal voice expressed with the help of each-other, one another ()

-the neuter (“ middle ”) voice in such sentences when the verbs primarily transitive develop an in­transitive middle meaning as The door opened. The college was filling up.

Дата добавления: 2013-12-13