Course paper Theme: Verbs as a part of speech, grammatical categories of verbs

2) 30) 8.4. The category of voice.

There are various approaches to defining voice. Ильиш points out 2 main approaches to defining voice.

According to the 1stthe category of voice expresses the relation between the subject and the action, and according to the 2ndone, the category of voice expresses the relation between the subject and the object of the action. Those definitions of voice are more widely accepted as which indicate the direction of an action in respect of the subject => 1st approach (by Ильиш). If the subject of the sentence is the doer of the action, they say that the action comes from it. If the subject of the sentence is the recipient (or the object) of the action, they say the action comes to it. 1st case – Active voice, 2nd case – Passive voice. The category of voice can be analyzed according to the oppositional theory: It’s the opposition of active form of the verb and the passive form of the verb. The marked member (strong) is Passive voice –it has a marker, the discontinuous morpheme be + -en in symbolic denotation.

The number of voices is a controversial problem, since some linguists single out 3 more voices in addition to Active and Passive They are reflexive, reciprocal, and middle.

The reflexive voice is found in “I will shave (myself) in no time. I will wash in no time”. The direction of the action in the examples is different from that of the Active Voice since the action is performed on the subject himself. Some linguists say it comes from subject and back to it. This kind of grammatical meaning is called reflexive. It can be rendered explicitly, with the help of reflexive pronouns, or implicitly as in the 2nd example. The trouble is that the reflexive meaning is not expressed by the form of the verb since the verb is in the active form. Ильиш says that in order to acknowledge the existence of the reflexive voice it’s not necessary to prove that the reflexive pronoun used in it is an auxiliary word, not a direct object. However, Ильиш doesn’t recognize the existence of the reflexive voice, he leaves the question open.

The reciprocal voice is found in sentences like “Nelly and Chris divorced 2 years ago”, “The friends will be meeting tomorrow morning”. You can also use these sentences with reciprocal pronouns “each other / one another”, the direction of the action is distinct from that of the active voice. It can be described: “the action goes on between the elements of the subject” => this kind is called “reciprocal”. Can also be rendered explicitly (each other) or implicitly (without). Those who recognize it treat the reciprocal pronouns as voice auxiliaries. Yet most grammarians don’t recognize the existence of this voice because the specific grammatical meaning isn’t expressed by the form of the verb. There are 4 possible directions of the action: (1) from the subject, (2) to the subject, (3) from the subject and back to it, (4) between the elements of the subject. Only the first 2 directions are indicated by the form of the verb. Therefore they are recognized as members of the opposition within the category of voice – active and passive voices. The other 2 directions are indicated by lexical means – either by the lexical meaning of the verb, or reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. The middle voice is found in: “The book is selling well”, “The door opened”, “The rule applies to all instances”. The transitive verbs are used specifically – the action expressed by them is confined to the subject as if it is going on on its own accord. Here the action goes on within the subject without affecting any object. Such instances differ from the active voice both in meaning and in the syntactical construction. However, Blokh says that such instances are lacking both in regularity and the outer form of expression. He describes these instances as cases of the neutralization of the voice opposition, so the strong member coincides with the weak member of the opposition but as to like “book is selling” – Blokh says it isn’t a typical case. The weak member doesn’t coincide but is located between the 2 members.