Lecture 8

Lecture 8. The Verb: Voise. The Verbals

The category of voice shows the information focus in the sentence.

Voice (from Latin vox-vocis a faculty of speech) is the grammatical category of the verb expressiong parsing of the situation information structure as conceived by the speaker. It is a speaker-related category.

Different approaches to voice:

- formal (traditional) - H. Sweet, O. Jespersen, A.Smirnitsky, L. Barchudarov: voice is a meaningful opposition of two form-classes: He asks - He is asked;
- semantic - H. Poutsma, I. Ivanova.

The category of voice in traditional grammar

Member/ Active Passive
Plane

Form unmarked marked (be+-ed/n,
vowel/cons. change,
soppletion, zero morph.)

Meaning the subject is the subject is the recipient
the agent of the of the action
action

Function functions of finite and non-finite forms


Active voice: semantic scope (L. Barchudarov)

The subject of the sentence is:
- active (the agent): He opened the door (active meaning)
- non-active (not or not only the agent):
She broke her leg (passive meaning)
The concert began (middle, active-passive meaning)
John shaved himself (reflexive meaning)
They kissed each other (reciprocal meaning)

The category of voice: semantic approach

- active: I asked a question
- passive: He was asked a question
- middle: The door opened
- reflexive: She dressed herself
- reciprocal: They met in the street

Arguments against the semantic approach:
- The subject of the active verb is the agent in an overvelming majority of cases.
- Almost all meanings ofthe active form have an active component.
- It is impossible to use an object with the preposition by in sentences with the active verb in passive meaning.

Grammatical ways of expressing passive meanings in English (traditional) [three diff. approaches are used in this classification]
- direct passive: The rat was killed by the dog - The dog killed the rat;
- indirect passive: He was told an interesting story - Smb told him an interesting story;
- prepositional passive: He was taken care of;
- adverbial passive: The bed was not slept in.

Modern classification:
Type/Name Passive
Functional Objective Adverbial
Semantic Direct Indirect
Formal Prep. Non-prep.


Variant meanings of "to be+PII"

- He was awarded the top honor - analytical form of the passive voice, "actional passive"
- He was wounded - analytical form of the passive voice, "statal pasive"
- He was convinced that he was right - compound nominal predicated

Reasons for the use of PV in English

Passive voice changes the word order to give emphasis to the new information which is placed at the end of the sentence: The boy wrote a letter - The letter was written by the boy.

Non-finite forms of the verb:
- infinitive
- gerund
- participle I
- participle II

Non-finits (verbal, verbids) are not used in the function of a primary predicate.

Different systems of non-finite forms:

Traditional Formal Plotkin's
(Sweet, Smirnitsky, (Kruisinga,
Bloch) Barchudarov,
Amer. descript.)

infinitive infinitive infinitive (bare)
infinitive (with to)

gerund
ing-form gerund
participle I

participle II participle


The dual nature of non-finite forms:
- origin
OE noun - infinitive and gerund
OE adjective - PI and PII
- over time acquired features of the verb
- combine the properties of the verb and the noun (infinitive, gerund) and of the verb and adjective (PI and PII)

Secondary predication

The ability to show the secondary predication is expressed by transformation:
- I saw him crossing the street - I saw him when he was crossing the street;
- My smoking irritates her - It irritates her when I smoke.


Lecture 9

Three part of grammar:
- morphology (word forms)
- syntax (word groups and sentences)
- text grammar / discourse analysis