29. The Verb. The category of Voice, its definition. Different views on the problem. Relationship of voice and transitivity and intransitivity of verbs.

Voice is the form of the verb which serves to show whether the subject of the sentence is the agent or the object of the action expressed by the predicate verb. There are 2 voices in English – the Active and the Passive voice. The active voice shows that the person or thing denoted by the subject of the sentence is the doer of the action expressed by the predicate verb, that it acts. For example, ‘I don’t agree with her’. The passive voice serves to show that the person or thing denoted by the subject of the sentence is not the doer of the action expressed by the predicative verb but the object of the action. The subject of a passive verb doesn’t act but is acted upon, it undergoes an action. For example, ‘I was given a present by him’.

Relationship of voice and transitivity and intransitivity of verbs. Let’s consider some examples, ‘He will shave and wash’ ‘I haven’t dressed up yet.’ The verbs in these sentences are objective, transitive and used absolutively in the form of the active voice. But the real voice meaning is not active, because the actions expressed are not passed from the subject to any outer object, on the contrary these actions are confined to no other participant of the situation than the subject, the latter constituting its own object of the action performance. This kind of verbal meaning of the action performed by the subject upon itself is called as ‘reflexive’

37. The Sentence. Types of complex sentences and their structure.

A complex sentence consists of a main clause and several subordinate clauses. Clauses in a complex sentence may be linked in 2 ways: syndetically (by means of subordinating conjunctions or connectives, for example ‘I think, that she is right’) and asyndetically (without a conjunction or connective, for example ‘I think she is right’). The subordinate clauses are divided into subject, predicative, attributive, object clauses and adverbial modifier of time, condition, cause, concession, manner, purpose, attendant circumstances. For example, ‘what he should do is uncertain’ – subject clause. ‘The trouble is that I have lost my book’ – predicative clause. “He asked us what we should do’ – object clause. ‘The man who was her is my brother’ – attributive clause. ‘I left home, because I was tired’ – adverbial clause of cause.

24. The Verb. The problem of aspect. Definition of this category. English and Russian aspects compared.

The category of aspect shows the character of the development of the action. For almost all English words there exist 2 sets of aspectual forms, for example – ‘Now I am doing my homework” – continuous aspect, ‘Usually he does his homework alone’ – common aspect. Both forms belong to the same verb, but there’s some grammatical difference between them. The 1^st form ‘am doing’ denotes an action going on continuously at the moment of speaking, thus having certain time limits. The second form ‘does’ expresses a habitual action, occurring repeatedly, thus not limited. The English common aspect usually corresponds to the Russian perfective aspect and the English continuous aspect to imperfective aspect. But we observe some difference between them. the English common aspect is less concrete and much broader than the Russian perfective aspect. The Russian perfective aspect represents an action in its entirety. It implies some meaning. The English common aspect only registers the fact. It states that the action took place in the past or present or future, but it doesn’t imply the idea of any meaning. ‘She wrote a book’ – in Russian it’s translated ‘написал’ and it’s perfective. But the sentence ‘She wrote from morning till night’ is translated ‘она писала с утра до ночи’, it’s imperfective in Russian. The English common aspect correspond to both perfective and imperfective aspect in Russian. the difference is determined by the context only. Therefore, professor Ivanova calls common aspect the zero aspect. The continuous aspect in English in general is narrower and more concrete than the Russian imperfective aspect. The English aspect is limited by the given moment at which the action is developing.