The Category of Voice

Voice is the grammatical category of the verb that shows the direction of the process having the subject as a landmark. The active-voice construction marks that the process is directed from Subject towards the object; in the passive-voice construction the process is reversed.

e.g. 1. Generations of lovers have walked under this bridge. —> This bridge has been walked under by several generations.

2. The servant (Agent) beats the carpet (Affected) once a week.

3. The carpet (Affected) is beaten by the servant (Agent) once a week.

Example (2) is called active because the Subject is aligned with an active role, the role of the Agent; the servant carries out the process. Example (3) is called passive because the Subject, the carpet, is associated with a passive role, the role of the Affected, the carpet, is the entity on which the action is performed.

What is at the basis of the process of passivization? The motives are informational-pragmatic:

1. the speaker's wish to use the Agent as the Theme (the active construction) or the Affected as the Theme (the passive construction).

2. the speaker's reluctance or inability to use the Agent.

3. the speaker's wish to avoid semantic redundancy, i.e. to avoid non-informative constituents, e.g. English is spoken in many countries.

The category of voice is based on transitive verbs, i.e. verbs associated with at least two nouns whose semantic roles are those of an Agent and an Affected (Patient). The passive voice is an analytic form: it is built up by means of the corresponding tense of the auxiliary verb be and the past participle of the given verb.

Transformationally, it derives from the deep structure of the corresponding active sentence: Mary + past + give + apple + to John ♦ John was given the apple by Mary;. The rules that are applied to the deep structure include: 1) Agent postposing; 2) Recipient preposing; 3) verb passivizing. Passive-voice sentences and active-voice sentences are syntactic synonyms - they have the same cognitive meaning.

It must be noted that the combination of the verb be with the past participle does not always form the passive voice; it may also be a compound nominal predicate. When the verb be with the past participle expresses a process, it is the passive voice. When the construction expresses a state resulting from a process, the verb be is a link-verb and the participle is a predicative. Hence two types of passives: verbal and adjectival, e.g.

The door was closed by the janitor vs. The door was closed. The two constructions have been the subject of many discussions in the linguistic literature. Some linguists are against this interpretation. So, for instance, L.S. Barkhudarov and L.A. Shteling (1973:156) argue that in such cases we have the passive voice. The idea of state is not inherent to the construction as a whole but to the past participle whose actual meaning is determined by the meaning of the verb it is derived from. Linguists think that it is only when the past participle has been subjected to adjectivization that we can speak of a nominal predicate construction, e.g. I am very interested.

B. Khaimovich and B. Rogoyskaya are inclined to believe that such constructions as The door was closed cannot be treated as passive. These are 'passive' constructions which have no active counterparts. Prof. M. Blokh thinks that the grammatical status of the construction is determined not by its meaning in isolation; it is determined by the semantic properties of its constituents, its participial part in particular. If the participle expresses a process, then the whole construction is passive and if the participle expresses the result, the whole construction is a nominal predicate. The door was closed by the janitor. The door is often closed.

Constructions of the second sentence type are synonymous to the corresponding perfect constructions. Cf. My work is finished vs. My work has been finished. The first sentence draws attention to the result and the second sentence draws attention to the process.

Besides be-passives, grammars generally give separate treatment to get-passives.

They were killed by the hijackers vs. They got killed by the hijackers.

The main differences between the two types of passives are:

1. Get-passives are characteristically used in sentences involving adversity or benefit (e.g. Kim got sacked, vs. Kim got promoted);

2. Get-passives tend to be avoided in formal style.

However, get is not a grammatical word-morpheme; it is not devoid of lexical content. Hence, it is not an analytical construction in this sense.

The grammarians are faced with the linguistic status of self-pronouns. The problem is whether self-pronouns used in such sentences as John is shaving himself are auxiliary words (grammatical word-morphemes) used for forming a special reflexive voice of the verb.

The other voices distinguished in English are reciprocal and middle. The reciprocal voice is expressed with the help of reciprocal pronouns added to the verb, e.g. They kissed each other. The problem is similar to that of the reflexive voice whether the reciprocal pronouns each other or one another are grammatical word morphemes or lexical words? Examples such as They kissed each other and the child suggest that the pronouns cannot be treated as grammatical word morphemes.

The so-called 'middle' voice can be illustrated by such sentences as The door opened. Semantically, this sentence reminds us of the passive sentence proper; yet it cannot be completed with the by-construction: *The door opened by the wind, only The door was opened by the wind. Examples of this kind have been treated in the linguistic literature as the notional passive or constructions with active-passive combinations.