7) The category of voice
The category of voice (which is found both with finite and non-finite forms) is one of the most formal grammatical categories, because this category doesn’t refer to any fragment of reality, doesn’t reflect any fragment of reality – it’s a way of describing a certain fragment of reality. The category of voice deals with the participants of a happening (doer, action, object) and how they are represented in the sentence (subject, predicate, object). The Active Voice shows that the grammatical subject of the sentence or the subjectival is the doer of the action, denoted by the verb, the Passive Voice shows that the subject or the subjectival is an object of the action. The frequency of occurrence of the English Passive Voice is very great, greater than in Russian. One of the reasons is that the number of verbs capable of forming the Passive Voice is greater in English than in Russian. In many languages: PV – transitive verbs, in English: PV – any object verb. In some cases the lex. character of the verb the subj. of the active construction can’t be regarded as the doer of the action. These cases are: ex. He lost his father in the war.; he broke his leg. Disagreement btw the gram. form of the verb and the lex. mean-g of the verb. Due to the lex. mean-g of the V the semantics of the construction becomes passive. In fact the subj. is not the doer, but the sufferer. Some grammarians treat these constructions as active due to the gram. form.
Opposition: active – passive. Passive – marked -> pattern “be + II participle”, active –unmarked
Forms of Fut.Cont, Present Perf.Cont, Past Perf.Cont, Future Perf.Cont – no parallel forms in passive.
Any other voices??? -> doubts and controversy
- the reflexive voice (eq.He dressed himself) – the agent and the object of the action simultaneously ;
- the reciprocal voice (They greeted each other) – not 1 person; action aimed at the other member of the same group;
- the middle voice (The door opened) – the form of the v is act, but the meaning is passive.
The active voice has a number of mean-gs: active, passive, middle, reflective, reciprocal.
Pr. Ilyish “ Eng. Has several voices. The classif-n is based on mean-g only.
Pr. Barhudarov calls the active voice non-passive.
The idea of the Passive voice is expressed not only by means of “to be + P2”, but by means of “get”, “come”, “go” + P2 and “get” + passive infinitive (ingressive meaning - He got involved; He got to be respected).
The existence of various means of expressing voice distinctions makes it possible to consider voice as a functional-semantic category with the grammatical category of voice as its center and other means of expressing voice as a periphery.
7А) the category of voice.
The category of voice is a complicated phenomena and that is why we can find a different definitions of this category such as:
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It expresses the relations between the subject of the action and the action itself.
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It expresses the relation between the subject and the object of the action.
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It shows whether the subject characterized by the verb is the doer of the action or its object.
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It expresses the centrifugality (центробежность) of the centrypitality (центростремительность)of the action expressed by the verb.
The most acceptable modern definition is that by professor Cholodovych. It arouses the following:
-the category of voice is a regular expression by the form of the verb of the correlation between the units of syntactic and semantic levels. Example:
The category of voice is often treated is a model category since the speaker chooses between the semantic subject or the semantic object to characterize them by the same action. When he chooses for his description the semantic subject he puts it him as the subject of the sentence as the theme and semantic object is given as the syntactic object of the sentence and as the rheme. In this case he uses the active form of the verb, but when the speaker would like to describe the semantic object from the view point of the same action he puts it\him as the syntactic subject and the semantic subject is put as the syntactic object of the sentence. But in this case he changes the form of the verb into a passive one to avoid the ambiguity of the sentence.
Thus there are two generally accepted voices in English. The active voice is the unmarked member of the opposition and the passive voice is the marked member. It is expressed by the analytical construction BE+Participle II. The passive voice can be used only to transitive words in Russian. In transitive ones can’t be used in the passive voice. (in Russian) –example – студент думает об экзаменах-студентом думается о экзаменах. But in English intransitive verbs can also be used in the form of a passive voice. For ex: it is thought much of. Even non-complementive non-objective verbs can be used in the passive voice. Ex: the bird hasn’t been slept in. To sleep – isn’t complementative verb. My hat has been sat on – на мою шляпу сели. В комнате долго не жили – the room hasn’t been lived in for many months.
The auxiliary verb BE can be substituted for by the verb GET to avoid the ambiguity of the construction BE+Participle II. Ex: to get wounded, to get broken. BE + Participle II can express not only passive meaning but it is also treated as the form of the compound nominal predicate. For ex: To be seated, to be mistaken, the chair is broken. When my wound is healed, I will get to the front again. The passive voice expresses actions but compound nominal predicates express states after actions. In German they have two forms of the passive voice. The passive of the action built up by the form – Werden+Partizip II – Ich wurde geborn. And the passive of the state built up by auxiliary verb SEIN + Partizip II. By the analogy of the german language some English grammarians suggest treating the form of the compound nominal predicate as the form of the passive of the state by conjunction. There are verbs in English which can’t be passivized – to have, to belong, to cost, etc. I have a house – the house is had by me. There are special language means which help us to distinguish the passive voice from the compound nominal predicate:
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The preposition BY indicating the doer of the action
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Adverbial modifiers of time and place
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The forms of the continuous and perfect aspects.
Example : The snow was piled high by the wind. – the snow was piled high by the door. The chair was broken – the chair was broken last week. The form BE+ Participle II can express one more categorical meaning that of the perfect aspect. Ex: He is come. The boy is returned. The man is gone. I’m just finished.
Strange as it may seen, not all the active forms of the verb express active meanings. Example: He received a letter. He has a tooth ache. He took a severe painting. The book sells well. Besides the active and passive voices some linguists used to distinguish the following voices in English:
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The reflexive voice – He dressed himself.
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The reciprocal voice – The greeted each other. They hasted each other.
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The middle voice – neither active nor passive- The door opened. The food eat well.
But not all the grammarians agree with this view point. And they bring the following arguments against treating the reflexive and reciprocal constructions as analytical forms of the category of voice:
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In cases like “He washed himself” it is not the verb that is reflexive, but the pronoun himself used as a direct object.
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The words ‘washed’ and ‘himself’ - are words belonging to different lexemes which have different lexical and grammatical meanings and which have different syntactical functions those of the predicate and the object of a sentence.
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If such a construction is an analytical word form it is necessary to admit that a verb has categories of gender, of person, non-person and the categories of number and person are expressed twice. Example: he washed himself – of gender. The categories of person – He washes himself. We wash ourselves. But one and the same category is never expressed twice in grammatical forms.
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A number of verbs can express the reflexive and reciprocal meanings without the corresponding pronouns. – example – he washed and dressed before breakfast.
The similar arguments can be given against the reciprocal voice. As for the middle voice there are no grounds for distinguishing it as a grammatical category since it hasn’t got any forms of its expressions. Example – книга хорошо читается –the book reads well. The shirt washes well –рубашка хорошо стирается.
The meaning of the passive voice can be expressed not only by the form of the passive voice, but by some other non-grammatical means. All of them build up a system which can be represented as the functional semantic field of passivity. The nucleus of the field includes the form BE+Participle II. Then the lexico-grammatical periphery includes such constructions as to get wounded, take a painting, receive a blow, get a scolding. The nthe lexico-syntactic periphery includes such free word-combinations as to win recognition, to fall under suspicion, to be under observation, undergo examination, suffer a defeat etc. The lexical periphery includes the following verbs – to have in the meaning to get, to receive, to see, to bear, to hear, for ex: to have one’s leg wounded. To have a trouble. To have somebody searching one’s pocket.
The usage of the passive form is more frequent in English than in Russian since English has got a developed system of cases. In Russian –дом строится, дом строят, книга читается, книгу читают. – it should be noted that Englishmen don’t always use the grammatical form of the passive voice. The often resort to non-grammatical , that is peripheral means of expressing the passive meaning. Ex: его вдруг заподозрили в краже – He fell under suspicion. ( he began to be suspected - не то)
8) The category of ASPECT in modern English
Aspect – a gram.category which characterizes the way in which the action expressed by the verb is carries out.
In Russian – 2 aspects: imperfective (несов.), perfective (сов.)
Imperfective expresses an action or a state without indicating a limit beyond which this act/state can not continue - eq. я читал; Perfective denotes actions that have a limit beyond which this action can’t continue: eq. я прочитал книгу. In Russian aspect is a gram.cat. As each aspect has a certain meaning and form to express this meaning. There are certain markers of each aspect – eq. делать-сделать.
As the Eng.language grammarians of the past didn’t find aspective distinction of the v., instead they spoke about 4 groups of tenses: indefinite, continuous, perfect, perfect-continuous
The majority of grammarians believe the Eng.verb has aspect. They admit that this gram.category may be expressed:
lexically aspect is expressed by the lex.character of the v. The verb falls into 2 groups:
terminative: apply a limit beyond which the action can’t continue (to break, to open);
non-terminative: the action may go on indefinitely (to love, to sit).
Most English verbs are polysemantic and may be terminative in one meaning and non-terminative in another. It’s never shown formally. There is no marker of belonging to this aspect. The meaning is clear from the context.
grammatically an opposition of corresponding forms (take – be taken)
common – the form of the common aspect isn’t marked;
continuous – is marked by the discont.morpheme be + ing .
The terms used to describe aspect are not stable (progressive - perfective; generic – temporally)
The difference bw the aspect forms isn’t temporal. The tense is the same with both forms.
The cont.aspect has a specific meaning – it’s used for incomplete actions that are in progress at the moment under consideration or at a certain period: eq He was studying at 5 o’clock.
The common aspect shows the action in a general way, may denote a complete/incomplete action but the form doesn’t state it.
Prof.Barhudarov: common aspect = non-continuous.
Common aspect may denote:
1)a momentary action (eq she dropped the plate)
2)a recurrent/repeated action (eq.I get up at 7 o’clock every day)
3)an action occupying a long period of time (eq.he lived in St.-Pb from 1940 to 1965)
4)an action of unlimited duration (eq.The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea)
8а) Aspect – a gram.category which characterizes the way in which the action expressed by the verb is carries out.
Grammatical aspective meanings form a variable grammatical category which is traditionally associated with the opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms of the verb. Yet, one can find a great divergence of opinions on the problem of the English aspect. The difference lies in the interpretation of the categorical semantics of the oppositional members – continuous and indefinite forms: the categorical meaning of the continuous form if usually defined as the meaning if duration, while the interpretation of the categorical semantics of the indefinite forms causes controversy ,
(as ivanove thinks the indefinite form may be interpreted as having no aspective meaning )(vorontsova) as a form having a vague content (smirnitsky) as a form stressing the fact of the performance of the action. In modern linguistics smirnitsky’s interpretation of the categorical semantics of the indefinite firm is widely accepted.
In theoretical grammar the interpretation of perfect\ non-perfect verb forms also refers to disputable question. Some linguists interpret the opposition of perfect\non-perfect forms as aspective – jespresen,ivanova,vorontsove; others as the opposition of tense forms – sweet, curme,Korsakov. Smirnitsky was the first to prove that perfect and non-perfect make up a special, self-sufficient, category which ha called the category of time correlation; this viewpoint is shared now by a vast majority of linguists.
Developing smirnitsky’s views on the categorical semantics of perfect\non-perfect forms, we can come to the conclusion that in English there exist two aspective categories: the category of development , which is based on the opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms, and the category of retrospective coordination which is based on the opposition of perfect and non-perfect forms.
The perfect form has a mixed categorical meaning : it expresses both retrospective time coordination of the process and the connection of the prior action with a time-limit reflected in a subsequent event. The recognition of the two aspect categories also enables one to give a sound interpretation to the perfect continuous forms: they must be treated as forms having marks in both the aspect categories.
The opposition of continuous and non-continuous forms can neutralized. Besides, in the category of development verbs which are usually not used in continuous forms can be subjected to the process of reverse transposition : were you wanting my help?
As for the opposition of perfect and non-perfect forms, it can undergo only the process of neutralization , transposition being alien to it.