29) The category of voice of the verb.

The verbal category of voice shows the direction of the process as regards the

participants of the situation reflected in the syntactic construction.

2 sets of verbs:1.passivized 2.non-passivized (e.g. have, belong cost)

The category of voice is realized by binary-privative opposition, where the passive

voice is the strong member (be…en). It denotes relations between an action and a

subject and an object.

The big problem in connection with the voice identification in English is the

problem of “medial” voices. Ex:The bells rang. The fabrics washes easily.

They are passive in their meaning but the forms are active. Such constructions are

called causative à the bells were made to ring, but it is presented as if they rang

themselves è Middle (neuter) voice. There is specific meaning, but no specific

form. Reflexive voice – e.g. He hurt himself (V + reflexive pronoun).

Iliysh: He hurt himself and the child – himself is a direct object, but not a part of

the verb. But in some cases the pronoun can be omitted, e.g. He washed, dressed –

the meaning of reflexivity remains.

Reciprocal voice – formed with the help of analytical means (each other, one

another). The meaning of the reciprocal voice is obvious – mutuality. The subject is

often plural, but meaning can be expressed implicitly.

They met (each other) at the station.

Passive voice (to be + PII)

Some linguists say that there are some other auxiliary verbs - to get, to become, e.g.

He became surprised. Counter arguments: get and become retain their lexical

meaning. The radio was invented by Popov./Popov invented radio.

!!!!Actual division of the sentence changes.

Passive has its own sphere of use. For depersonifying in scientific literature. Passive

can be a means of supra-phrasal connection.

Within passive structures we discriminate:

Direct ,Indirect ,Prepositional, Phraseological, Adverbial passive

Another controversial question concerns the border-line between the morphological

form of the passive voice and syntactical form of the corresponding compound

nominal predicate with the pure link be.

30) The phrase, its definition. The study of the phrase in Russian and foreign

linguistics.

There are 2 understandings of the term phrase:

A phrase is a combination of 2 or more notional words connected by means of

subordination: e.g. cold weather, writing letters, fruit salad, Peter’s book,.The

elements of the phrase may belong to any PofS.Some of the scholars do not single

out the phrase at all.H.Sweet-a word group.

Prof.Barkhudarov: a phrase is a combination of 2 or more notional words,

connected by means of subordination, coordination and predicative relation if it

cannot function as a sentence: mother and father

The difference between a phrase and a sentence is fundamental.

A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or process, just as a word is. Each

component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes in accordance with gr.

categories without destroying the unity of the phrase.

A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form

of one or more words would produce a new sentence. A phrase or a word has no

intonation. A sentence has it.

The study of the phrase in Russian and foreign linguistics:

Иванова, Бурлакова, Почепцов:

Russian Linguistics:

The creation of the theory of a phrase is due to Russian linguists. This theory is

connected with such linguists as Фортунатов, Шахматов, Пешковский. All

through its development the theory underwent a lot of changes. Until the 50-s the

wide understanding of the term “phrase” prevailed. And any syntactically

organized group was considered as a phrase, no matter what constituted it.

This point of view is still accepted.

But by the 50-s there appeared in the modern linguistics a new interpretation of this

problem, and the term “phrase” acquired an extremely narrow sense and was

applied only to those phrases which include not less than 2 notional words,

connected by the relations of subordination. Predicative and prepositional groups

were excluded from the phrase theory. This point of view was introduced by

Vinogradov and was supported by many Russian linguists.

This is characteristic of Russian linguists to bring a word and a phrase together to

the maximum.

Though this point of view was not supported by some of linguists (Ilyish,

Жирмунский), it became the predominant in the middle of the 20 century, and the

traditional understanding of a phrase in the Russian linguistics is restricted to

subordinate structures only.

!!! Sentences are communicative units of language, phrases – non-communicative.

But, the phrase can acquire the properties of a sentence, e.g. Mother and father?

(an elliptical sentence).

Foreign Linguistics:

The scientific theory on the phrase appeared abroad much later. It acquired its

theoretical interpretation only in the 30-s due to an American linguist Bloomfield.