The Category of Voice

The verbal category of voice shows the direction of the process regarding the participants of the situation. It is expressed by the opposition of the passive form of the verb (strong member) to the active form of the verb. The passive form expresses reception of the action by the subject of the syntactic construction. The category of voice (which is found both with finite ad non-finite forms) is one of the most formal grammatical categories, because the category doesn’t reflect any fragment of reality-it is 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 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 category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice:: Passive voice. The realization of the voice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:

1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise;

2. Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;

3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. A lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;

4. Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;

5. Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;

6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk, to jump.

Three types of passive constructions can be differentiated: 1) direct primary passive; 2) indirect secondary passive; 3) prepositional tertiary passive. Some English verbs can admit only one object – the direct one: e.g. Mary saw him. When such an object becomes the subject of a passive construction, the latter is called direct primary passive: e.g. He was seen by Mary. There are many verbs in English that take two objects in the active construction (direct and indirect): e.g. I gave him a book. She told the story to her sister. These verbs admit of two passive constructions: a) A book was given to him. The story was told to her sister. (the direct primary passive) b) He was given a book. Her sister was told the story. (the indirect secondary passive)

The indirect (secondary) passive is not infrequent in verb-phrases with the verb to give, such as: to give credit, to give command, to give a chance, to give a choice, to give an explanation, to give an opportunity, to give orders, to give shelter, and the like.e.g. He was given a good to chance to argue.However, many verbs in English may take a direct and an indirect object in the active construction but admit only one passive construction — the direct passive, e.g.: to bring, to do, to play, to telegraph and many others.

The frequency of occurrence of the English Passive Voice is 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 passive voice is expressed only by transitive verbs, in English-by any object verb. The Russian sentences (types of sentences), which correspond to the English sentence with the Passive Voice: 1. Indefinite-personal: Ему сказали

2. The Russian sentence with the analytical or the synthetic passive: Дом был построен. Дом строится.

3. Russian sentences with the Active Voice, with the subject-predicate inversion: Это сделал мой брат. (It was done by my brother).

4. Russian impersonal sentences: Крышу унесло ветром.

The idea of the Passive Voice is expressed not only by means of “to be + P2”. In colloquial speech the role of the passive auxiliary can occasionally be performed by the verbs get, come, become, go+P2 and get + passive infinitive (ingressive meaning): He got involved. He got to be respected. There are several verbs that can’t be used in passive voice: to rain, to snow etc.

The Category of Time Correlation (Retrospective Coordination)

There is one more category in the English verb in which the concept of time finds its grammatical expression. It is the category of time correlation which deals not with the relation between the action and the moment of communication, but with temporal correlation of actions. It is constituted by the opposition of the perfect forms of the verb to the non-perfect. The idea and the meaning of the perfect form have been the matter of close consideration for centuries: in many grammars it was treated as:

- A tense form

- A relative (secondary) tense

A.I. Smirnitsky was the first who identified the opposition perfect/non-perfect as a category and gave it its name. The functional contact of it was defined as priority expressed by the perfect forms in the present, past and future contrasted against the non-expression of priority by the non-perfect forms. Now there are 3 main points of view on the perfect form:

- it’s a relative (secondary) tense

- a category of time correlation

- it is an aspect

The category of retrospective coordination is an independent category which is semantically intermediate between aspective and temporal. It interpreted the action in the light of priority and aspective transmission. The perfect form presents an action as prior to some other action and is the strong member of the opposition. The non-perfect form denotes either a simultaneous or a posterior action or even priority (I remember seeing you). In this case, we speak of transposition and neutralization: “ I have always thought that he lives in Florida. I hear that’s a good lace ”. The meaning of priority is more obvious in the case of past perfect or Future Perfect, and not so obvious in case of Present Perfect (priority to the moment of communication), but this priority is also expressed by Past Indefinite form. Both of them may denote an event which took place before the time of communication, but using P.P. the speaker accentuates the relevance of that past action for the present. In the case of P.I. the past moment of action is cut off from the present which is often done by the indication of the past moment (I was in Paris last summer). In case of P.P. the past is not cut from the present but rather continues into the present. (I have been to Paris. I can be your guide.) The general paradigmatic meaning of priority and correlation to another action or point of time can be modified in various contextual conditions and presented by following syntagmatic meanings:

1. Result. With terminative verbs. Summer had died, fall was. / лето закончилось. Была осень.

2. Experience. P.P. denotes past action which has a present time relevance for the speaker. But I’ve been a President’s wife before. / я уже была однажды женой президента.

3. Continuation of a past action into the present. With prepositions for / since. I feel as I have been here for months. / у меня чувство словно я нахожусь здесь уже несколько месяцев.

4. An unfulfilled action. After the modal verbs be, might, should, ought and after the verbs of hope and expectation used in the past tense.

Due to their paradigmatic meaning of priority to another action the Perfect forms carry out an important text forming function. They help the readers to better understand the motives of characters’ actions. The Past Indefinite carries out a function of the text progression, presents events in chronological order, and creates flashback in the text. It helps to understand the reasons for the characters’ actions. Priority doesn’t find a grammatical expression in Russian and there is no analogical grammatical category. In translation the meaning of priority is usually expressed lexically, contextually. The coat had been grey. Пальто когда-то было серым. The category is broadly represented in verbids. The perfect is used with verbids only when its categorical meaning is made prominent. Otherwise it can also be neutralized: She admitted stolen in the car. The infinitive is less liable to neutralization: He is said to have been ill two days ago. Theperfect infinitive of notional verbs used with modal verbs may express several functions: priority and transmission; gradations of probability: He can’t have been here yesterday, certainly; He can’t have been here.

Exercises:

1. Identify the meaning of the verbs in active and passive: a) It’s a big company. It employs two hundred people. b) Two hundred people are employed by the company. c) Is this room cleaned every day? d) A lot of money was stolen in the robbery.

2. Put the verb into the correct form, present simple or past simple, active or passive:

a) Water____ (cover) most of the Earth’s surface.

b) The park gates____ (lock) at 6.30 p.m. every evening.

c) The letter____ (post) a week ago and it ____ (arrive) yesterday.

d) The boat____ (sink) quickly but fortunately everybody___ (rescue).

e) Why____ (Sue/resign) from her job? Didn’t she enjoy it?

f) I saw an accident last night. Somebody____ (call) an ambulance but nobody____ (injure) so the ambulance____ (not/need).

3. When it is possible to make two passive sentences? Here is a list of verbs which can have two objects: ask, offer, pay, show, teach, tell. When we use these verbs in the passive, most often we begin with the person: You’ll be given plenty of time to decide. Follow the pattern and make up your own sentences.

4. Use GET instead of BE where possible. Explain the choice of the auxiliary verb:

a) There was a fight at the party but nobody was hurt.

b) I’m not often invited to parties.

c) He was a nursery man. Nothing was known about him.

d) I’m surprised Ann wasn’t offered a job.

e) Jill is liked by everybody.

5. Replace the Infinitive in brackets by the correct forms of the verb: