Category of voice
The category of voice is represented
in M. E. by the system of opposemes: loves – is loved, to love –
to be loved, etc, and it shows whether the object is the doer of the
action or its object. E. g. He opened the door. The door was opened
(by him).
The active voice is unmarked, the
passive is marked in form and meaning. Some forms of the active voice
find no parallel in the passive Future Continuous, Present Perfect
Continuous, Past Perfect Continuous, Future Perfect Continuous. In
addition to two voices three other voices have been suggested:
the reflexive – he addressed
himself
the reciprocal – they greeted each
other
the middle voice – the door opened.
So Professor Ilyish finds 5 voices in
M. E. This viewpoint was criticized by professor Smirnitsky who
believed that there are only two grammatical voices – active and
passive, which are clearly opposed structurally and semantically. All
the other differences are lexical.
An extreme point of view is expressed
nowadays by V. Plotkin, who is of opinion that the English finite
verb has no morphological category of voice at all, and the
construction be + Ven is the nominal predicate expressing state and
consequently it is a syntactical category.
Some of the western linguists find it
possible to classify English voice into 3:
active: I opened the door
passive: The door is opened by me
stative: the doo is opened
O. Jespersen distinguished 2 passive
forms: actional passive and stational passive. E.g. The house is
painted white every year. The house is painted white.
