11. Verbs: types of classifications and categories of the verb: mood and voice.

7. The category of Voice in English and in Russian. Different viewpoints on the problem.

The category of voice indicates whether the subject is the doer or the recipient of the action, that is whether it actively takes part in the action or experiences it passively. The CoV comprises a binary opposition, where the unmarked member is the Active voice and the marked one (both in its meaning and form) is the Passive Voice. The category of aspect, once we speak of experienced actions, implies the existence of an opposition between transitive and intransitive verbs. Yet, their structure is more complex in English. There are 5 possible variants:

1) the verbs that are only transitive (to mark, to raise, to bring, etc.);

2) the verbs whose main meaning is transitive (to see, to build, to make), that is those that presuppose an object, but may be used without it;

3) the verbs that can develop a transitive meaning in a special context (they laughed her out of the room; dance me to the end of love, she lives a lonely life);

4) verbs that can be used both transitively and intransitively (to drive along the road – to drive home; to meet a friend – to meet at the corner);

5) the verbs that are never used in the passive (to seem, to become).

With this in view, three types of passive constructions can be differentiated in English:

1) direct primary passive;

2) indirect secondary passive;

3) prepositional tertiary passive.

When a direct object becomes a subject, such sentence makes a direct primary passive (The book was written by Tolstoy in 1887). If it is the indirect object that becomes the subject of a sentence, such construction is called indirect secondary passive (We were given copybooks). The indirect secondary passive is typical of the verb to give.

The subject in prepositional tertiary passive constructions corresponds to prepositional objects in the active voice. In the passive it retains this detached preposition after the verb (Everything was taken care of. He was frequently laughed at).

Some scholars admit the existence of three more voices: Middle (Ильиш), Reciprocal and Reflexive.

The middle voice is typical of the verbs which have developed a secondary intransitive meaning (the dress washes well, the door opened, he changed greatly in those years).

The subject of the reflexive voice coincides with the object (he dressed, he washed).

In the reciprocal voice it is easy to retrieve the object by means of the reciprocal pronoun (They kissed <each other>, they broke up <with each other>).

Yet, this classification is lexical rather than grammatical.

There are also different viewpoints on the construction “to get + Past Participle”. Jesperson and Vorontsova consider it a variety of the passive voice construction, whereas Khaimovich and Rogovskaya maintain it that it’s rather a free word combination, where the first word retains its lexical meaning.

The category of Mood in English and in Russian. General characteristics. Its definition.

Before speaking about the category of mood proper it would be of use to introduce such term as “modality”.

Modality is a linguistic category used to express the speaker’s attitude to what is being said or to the relation between the message and reality.

In English modality can be expressed:

1) lexically:

a) modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.);

b) modal words (perhaps, sure, by all means);

c) verbs denoting modality (suppose, desire, intend, mean, want, hope, etc.);

2) grammatically with the help of different forms of the grammatical category of mood;

3) phonetically using intonation.

The category of mood is a grammatical way of denoting modality, that is a grammatical way to express the attitude of the speaker toward the relation of the message to reality.

All linguists share the following statements:

1) there is a category of mood in the Modern English languages;

2) it is presented by at least two opposed moods one of which is indicative.

The first debatable question is about the number of moods (from 2 to 17).

Smirnitsky and some others speak of six moods in English: Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive I, Subjunctive II, Conditional and Suppositional.

Ilyish, Ivanova, Iofic and others distinguish between three moods (Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive).

Barkhudarov: two moods – Indicative and Subjunctive (I and II); Imperative is outside the category of mood.

Vorontsova - 4 moods: 1) Indicative; 2) Optative; 3) Speculative; 4) Presumptive.

Yet, traditionally – 3 moods.

Indicative: the speaker regards the action denoted by the verb as a fact (though – subjectively, for future tense or absurd phrases are also possible).

All other categories are realised within the Indicative mood.

Imperative is used to urge the listener to fulfil a certain action in the form of a command, request, piece of advice, etc. It is different from the other moods in that it lacks forms denoting the categories of time, number, aspect and correlation. It exists in one single form: the Imperative form. Usually there is no acting personal pronoun.

It also lacks any special morphological characteristics, being expressed by the bare infinitive form.

Some linguists are of the opinion that the Imperative mood possesses analytical forms of the first and third persons build up with the help of the semantically weakened verb let.

Vorontsova proved it the following way: 1) a juxtaposition of the notional verb “to let” and the delexical “let” is possible; 2) when addressed to a third person in an order or command, let becomes completely devoid of its semantic meaning; 4) let makes the Imperative mood a developed structure.

An argument against let being an auxiliary consists in its shaky negative form, which can either take an auxiliary do or simply be followed by the particle not.

The Indicative and Imperative moods are called direct moods, since to a certain extent they express what is regarded by the speaker as facts or direct urgings.

When a speaker regards the actions are desirable, doubtable, possible, contrary to reality, etc, Oblique moods are used.

A controversial issue in the oblique moods is that sometimes the same relations are expressed by different forms, so it’s questionable whether or not they should be separated (when “should” appears).

Considering all possible varieties and also peculiar cases of the Indicative mood, Jespersen singles out 16 Oblique moods.

There are scholars (like Henry Sweet) who speak of only two OM.

The most educationally convenient approach, though, was proposed by Smirnitsky, Gandshina and Vasilevskaya, who divided the Oblique moods into 4 classes.

Subjunctive I is a synthetic form which denotes a problematic action: He suggests we come on Friday; Long live the Queen; be it so.

Subjunctive II is also a synthetic form referring either to the present or to the past and denoting an unreal action: I wish this movie had a good English dubbing; I wish I had followed mom’s advice; Supposing you fell in love with a foreigner…

The Suppositional mood indicates a problematic action analytically in terms of simultaneousness or priority. Its indicator is the use of the mood auxiliary should: Our chief demanded that we should finish the project by next week. I am sorry you should have seen that.

The Conditional mood both in present and past analytically indicates an unreal action depending on an unreal condition: Pirogov would have been a success much more frequently if he had been aware of antisepsis rules. If I were her I wouldn’t have accepted his proposal.

Henry Sweet and a number of his followers considered it unnecessary to split the Oblique mood into various categories. He supposed it was one solid mood whose shades of meaning were insufficient to comprise independent moods. As for the difference between the synthetic and analytical forms, he thought them natural of the English grammar.