Lecture 8. The verb: voice. The verbals The Category of Voice Definition. Active and Passive Voices

In the last lecture we considered the category of mood which is seen as the category of the verb expressing relations between the situation and reality as conceived by the speaker. In other words, the category of mood shows the subjective appraisal of the situation reality-unreality by the speaker. In this lecture we will learn the category of voice and consider the non-finite forms of the verb (verbals).

The category of voice shows the information focus of the sentence. Voice is related to the subjective information parsing of the situation, which involves the speaker's attitude.

In this respect the category of voice is closely connected with the category of mood. That means that both of these categories (voice and mood) express subjective appraisal of the situation by the speaker, albeit along different lines.

Traditional grammar defines the verbal category of voice (from Latin vox-vocis a faculty of speech) as a meaningful opposition of two form classes: He asks - He is asked; He asked - He was asked; He is asking - He is being asked; He was asking - He was being asked; He has asked - He has been asked; He had asked - He had been asked; to take - to be taken; to have taken - to have been taken; taking - being taken; having taken - having been taken. The first members of the pairs represent the Active Voice, while the second - the Passive Voice.

The form of the passive voice is marked: it has a discontinuous morpheme {be= + -ed/n}. The form of the active voice is unmarked.

The meaning of the grammatical category of voice is traditionally defined as a feature of the verb indicating whether the subject of the sentence is the agent (doer) of the action or the recipient (object) of it. In other words, the category of voice expresses the relations between the subject and the action.

Thus, the majority of linguists of the traditional school, among them H.Sweet, O.Jespersen, A.I.Smirnitsky, L.S.Barchudarov, B.A.Ilyish, M.Y.Bloch, recognize only two voices in English: the active voice and the passive voice. Let's now look at each of the opposed form-classes in detail.

The Active Voice. Traditional approach

According to the traditional definition, the active voice shows that the subject of the sentence is the agent (doer) of the action expressed by the predicate verb, e.g.: John opened the door. He took a pencil. I asked a question.

However, there are cases when the subject of the sentence with the verb in the active voice cannot actually be regarded as the doer of the action. These cases may be illustrated as follows (Bepxoвская):

1. He lost his father in the war.

She broke her leg.

In the above-given examples there is disagreement between the grammatical form of the verb, which is defined as active, and its meaning, which is somewhat passive (the subject of the sentence is a sufferer, or recipient of the action, not its doer).

2. The concert began.

The door opened.

The book sells well.

The book reads like a detective story.

In the above-given examples the verb in the active voice denotes an action, which is going on in the subject itself, but its meaning is not active either. The subject is involved in the action, but it is not the active doer of this action. This meaning is called middle by some linguists (Бapxyдapoв,).

3. John shaved himself.

The kids washed and dressed.

In these examples the subject of the sentence denotes an agent and a recipient (doer and object) of the action at the same time. So, the form of the verb is active, but the meaning is active-passive. This meaning is called reflexive (возвратный) (Poutsma, 1926; Иванова, 1981).

4. They kissed each other.

John and Bill met in the street.

In these sentences the subject of the sentence also denotes an agent and a recipient of the action at the same time. But the difference from the previous case is that the agent and the recipient of the action are different persons (referents). The form of the verb is active, but the meaning again is not only active, but passive as well, with different referents. It is called reciprocal (взаимный).

We have seen then, that the so-called active voice in English has a wide range of meanings: active, passive, middle, reflexive, and reciprocal. Because of this L.S.Barchudarov thinks that it is more precise to define the active voice negatively as non-passive in opposition to the passive voice and to recognize the category of voice in English as consisting of two form classes: the passive voice and the non-passive voice. Regarding the passive meaning of the so-called active voice this definition does not seem appropriate to us either. The term "common" might do better.