The category of voice.

The category of voice is revealed through the binary opposition “active - passive” (love - is loved). Voice denotes the direction of an action as viewed by the speaker.

Voice is a morphological category but it has a distinct syntactic, significance. Active voice has obligatory connections with the doer of the action. Passive voice has - with the object of the action.

In the active construction the semantic and the grammatical subject coincide. In the passive construction the grammatical subject is the object of the action.

The direction of the action may be also expressed lexically, and the lexical and the grammatical meaning may or may not coincide.

The category of voice characterizes both finite forms and verbals: to love - to be loved; loving - being loved.

Participle I may be also opposed to participle II: loving - loved (active - passive). But participle II may also have perfect meaning: writing - written (non-perfect - perfect). Meanings rendered by participle II depend on transitivity/intransilivity and teminativity/durativity.

The category of voice is closelv connected with lexico-syntectic properties of verbs. According to the number and character of valencies verbs fall into subjective and objective, the latter being transitive and intransitive. In English all objective verbs havejhe category of voice. Transitivity in English it is a property of the lexico-semantic variant of the verb.

The main difficulty in defining the number of voices in modern English is the absence of direct correspondence between meaning and form. Three more voices have been suggested in addition to active and passive:

1. Reflexive: He hurt himself.

2. Reciprocal: They greeted each other.

3. Middle: The door opened.

Passive constructions in English are used more frequently than in Russian. In English not only transitive but also intransitive objective verbs have the category of voice. Here belong:

1. Ditransitive verbs with 2 direct objects.

2. Ditransitive verbs with the direct and the indirect object.

3. Verbs taking a prepositional object.

4. Phraseological units of the type to take care of, to set fire to, to lose sight of.

4. Some intransitive subjective verbs followed by prepositional phrases.

5. The combination be + participle II may denote a state as a result of the previous action.

A.I.Smirnitsky: passive constructions have corresponding active constructions: Tables are usually made of wood. - People, usually make tables of wood. But the sentence “The table is made of wood” has no parallel active construction. The combination be+participle II, denoting state, is a compound nominal predicate. Likewise the combination get (become) + participle II is a compound nominal predicate and not the form of the passive voice: got married, became influenced.

Читайте також:

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
The category of aspect.	\|	The category of mood.

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.003 сек.