5. The Category of Voice of the English and Ukrainian Verb

The category of voice is the system of two member opposemes (loves – is loved, loving – being loved, to love – to be loved, has loved – has been loved, etc.) which show whether the action is represented as issuing from the subject (the active voice) or as experienced by its object (the passive voice).

In Modern Ukrainian there are two voices differentiated: active and passive. The separate group includes reflexive verbs with the postfix -ся (голитися, гніватися). The passive voice can also be formed by the passive participle and non-personal form of participle ending in -но, -то (товариство організоване, товариство організовано). In Ukrainian the category of voice is characteristic only of transitive verbs.

Voice is one of those categories which show the close connection between language and speech. A voice opposeme is the unit of a language system, but the essential difference between its members is in their combinability in speech. The “active voice” member has obligatory connections with subject words and optional ones with object words. The “passive voice” member, on the contrary, forms obligatory combinations with object words and optional ones with subject words. Compare:

He loves (her).

She is loved (by him).

The category of voice also shows the links between morphology and syntax. Being a morphological category, voice often manifests syntactical relations. The voice opposites of finites indicate whether the subject of the sentence denotes the doer or the recipient of the action. Compare: She asked … and She was asked.

With regard to the category of voice verbs divide into those that have voice opposites and those which have not. The second subclass comprises subjective verbs and some objective verbs denoting actions of weak dynamic force (in which the meaning of “action” is hardly felt) like belong, become (“be suitable”), cost, fail, lack, last, own, possess, resemble, etc.

The content of all voice opposemes is the same: two particular meanings of “active” and “passive” voice united by the general meaning of “voice”. All the other meanings found in both members of the opposeme are irrelevant within the opposeme.

The form of voice opposemes in English seems to differ considerably. In the opposeme ask – am asked the “active” member has a zero grammatical morpheme and the “passive” member has a complicated positive morpheme (am … -ed). In asks – is asked both members have positive grammatical morphemes (-s) and (is … -ed). In will ask – will be asked the forms of the grammatical morphemes are still more complicated. But this variety of forms can be generalized. Then the “active” member can be regarded as unmarked and the “passive” member as marked by the combination of one of the words of the lexeme “be” used as a grammatical word-morpheme and the grammatical morpheme of Participle II, in the formula representation be + PII. Compare: to write – to be written.

Opinions differ as to the voice system of Modern English. Though most linguists, apparently, recognize only two voices in Modern English – the active voice and the passive voice, some speak also of the reflexive voice expressed with the help of the semantically weakened self-pronouns, as in He cut himself while shaving.

According to Yu.O. Zhluktenko [5; 86], the issue concerning forms of the voice expression in the system of English and Ukrainian verb cannot be considered as a finally solved problem. The majority of grammars express the opinion that the English language has three voices: 1) the active voice, which shows that the object or the person, expressed by the subject, perform the action; 2) the passive voice, which shows that the action of the predicate is directed towards the person or the object, expressed by the subject, but this action, is not performed by them; 3) the reflexive voice, which shows, that the action is centered upon the doer of the action himself/herself.

B.O. Illyish considers that there are five voices or states in English: indicative (дійсний), reflexive (зворотний), medium (середній), passive (пасивний) and reciprocal (взаємний). O.I. Smir­nitskyj claims that the so called reflexive and reciprocal states are not the grammar forms, these are the combinations of the active state of transitive verbs with pronoun objects (займенникові додатки) and the difference between them is only in the object character (характер додатка). According to his opinion in English there are only two states: the active and the passive ones.

The Ukrainian language has four major states: 1) the active/ or the indicative state (активний або дійсний), which includes all the transitive verbs; 2) the medium (середній) , which includes all intransitive verbs with the meaning of movement or state (бігти, летіти, спати, хворіти); 3) the passive state(пасивний), which includes the verbs that render the action performed upon the object (розмиватися, відбудовуватися); they usually have the ending -ся; 4) the reflexive state (зворотний), also including the verbs in -ся, which render the action, the object of which is the acting person (повертатися, роздягатися, вмиватися, чепуритися) [5; 86–87].

The Ukrainian grammarian M.A. Zhovtobrjukch finds only three states in the Ukrainian language: the active (the indicative), which includes all transitive verbs, the reflexive-medium and the passive states. The last two include verbs with the ending -ся. According to his opinion the intransitive verbs, rendering the movement or the state (іти, спати, сміятися) do not possess the category of state.

The peculiarity of the English language is the multiple meaning (багатозначність) of the verbal suffix -ся. Verbs with this suffix belong to different states, for example: a) the passive state: змінюється, затверджується; b) the reflexive: умиваюся; c) the reciprocal: змагаються, б’ються; d) the active-non-object: куса­ється, ганяється; e) the passive-non-object: (скло) б’ється, (стіл) розсувається and others [5; 87].

Some verbs in Ukrainian have only the reflexive form that is they are used only with the suffix -ся: любуватися, боятися, надіятися, сміятися and others. Also there are a lot of verbs which cannot be combined with this suffix that is they are unable to create the form of the reflexive state: лягти, сохнути, сісти, виснути, гнити, вмерти, пахнути, шуміти and others.

When we compare the building of the state forms in English and in Ukrainian (I defended him “я захищав його”, I was defended by him “мене захищав він”, I defended myself “я захищався”) then it can be easily noticed that in English the state is a more grammatical category than in Ukrainian, where it has a lexical-grammatical character. In Ukrainian we cannot build forms of different states from one and the same verb with such an ease as we do it in English. Besides in English a big number of verbs can act both as transitive and intransitive depending on the context where they are used, whereas in Ukrainian the meaning of a certain state is attached to a certain verb and determines the whole system of its forms [5; 87].

In Ukrainian the forms of the verb state are mainly synthetic ones, and in English analytical forms are prevailing.