Category of voice

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 object of the action is expressed by a predicate. The voice of the E. verb is expressed by the opposition of the passive form of the verb to the active form of the verb. The sign marking the passive form is the combination of the auxiliary “be” with the Past Participle of the conjugative verb. The Passive form is the strong member of the opposition, the Active form is the weak member of the opposition.

e.g. invites-is invited, is inviting- is being invited,..

Some forms of the Active Voice have no Passive: Future Continuous & all Perfect Continuous Tenses. In addition to 2 voices three other voices have been suggested by Pr. Ilyish:

the reflexive - He dressed himself.

the reciprocal – They greeted each other

the middle voice – The door opened

Pr Smirnitsky admits only 2 gram. voices – active & passive, which are clearly opposed structurally & semantically. All the other differences are lex..

Plotkin insists that the E. finite verb has no morphological category of voice at all, & the construction be + Ven is the nominal predicate expressing state. Thus it is a syntactical category.

The problem of the combination be + Ven

Generally the combination be + Ven is considered to be passive when it denotes action (The house is painted white every year) or the compound nominal predicate when it denotes state: the house is painted white; he felt tired, etc.

Practically the combination be + Ven is surely the passive voice when it is accompanied by an adverbial, a by-phrase or continuous/ perfect form; & participle II is of a durative (non-terminative) verb:

The door is closed at midnight (adverbial).

The man was drowned by a criminal.

Dinner is being served (continuous).

He is loved (durative verb).

In some cases when the subject of the sentence is the object of the action the Active Voice is used in stead of Passive.

The book reads well

Tangerines peel nicely

The auxiliary “get” is sometimes used in stead of “be” to express process

The chair got broken

It serves him right.

Besides “be” & “get”, the verbs: become, feel , grow, seem are

9. The Adjective. The category of Comparison.

1)The adj. expresses the categorical meaning of property of substance. 2)To the derivational features of adj. belong suffixes & prefixes of which the most important are - ful(hopeful), -less(flawless), -ish(bluish), -ous(famous), -ive(decorative), -ic(basic), un-(unprecedented), in-(inaccurate), pre-(premature). 3)As for the morphological features, the E.adj. has only one category-the category of Comparison. 4)In the sentence the adj. performs the functions of an attribute & predicative. 5)Adj. are distinguished by a specific combinability with nouns, which they modify, usually in preposition & occasionally in postposition. They also combine with link verbs & modifying adverbs.

All the adj. are traditionally divided into 2 large subclasses:

1) Relative: express such properties of a substance, which show the direct relation of the substance to some other substance(peripheral) e.g. wood-wooden heart 2) Qualitative: denote various qualities of substances(nucleous) e.g. different task

Degrees of Comparison It is the system of ternary opposemes, showing quantitative distinctions of qualities. e.g. long-longer-the longest. It is shows a higher or the highest amount of the property in comparison with the property of some other substances. Traditionally the adj. have 3 Degrees of Comparison: the positive, the comparative, the superlative

The positive degree is not marked; the comparative & the superlative degrees are expressed in 3 ways: synthetically(-er, -est), analytically(more, most), suppletively (by means of different roots)

suppletive opposemes are few in number, but occur often:

e.g. good-better- the best, bad-worse- the worst

There are different opinions about the number of degrees of comparison. Pr.Smirnitskii was of the opinion that there are only 2 forms of comparison: positive & relative, the later is expressed in 2 variants: comparative & superlative. So he reduced a ternary opposition to a 2-member opposition.

Some grammarians consider that only 2 degrees of comparison are to be found in adj.:the comparative & the superlative degree, while the so-called “positive degree” doesn’t express any degree, & it is simply the basic form to build up the degrees of comparison.

V.Plotkin is of the opinion that the degrees of comparison had lost the status of a morphological category, because the morphemes –er, -est have become suffixes for a few adj. & adv.(polite, narrow, clever, able). On the other h&, the forms words “more, most” are not equivalents of the suffixes –er, -est, as they retain some lex. meaning of their own & are also used with a limited number of adj. polysyllabic ones.

Moreover, not all E.adj. have the category of comparison, they are divided into comparables & non-comparables, the later are derived adj.-woolen, wooden, mathematical, i.e. relative adj. & the former adj. are qualitative ones.

Even some qualitative adj. have no degrees of comparison.

1) those expressing the highest degree lex.ly – supreme, extreme 2) those having the suffix –ish – reddish, bluish 3) denoting uncomparable qualities – deaf, dead, lame

The superlative often shows a very high degree of quality, without any comparison:

e.g. The room was furnished in the most refined style.

Elative (безотносительно высокая степень качества)

e.g. It was a most interesting performance.

Sometimes adj. have meanings different from their degree of comparison.

e.g. The positive may express comparative & even superlative meaning. e.g. As brave as a hare

The analytical forms “more” & “most” are used with monosyllabic adj. for emphasis. e.g. He looked more stern (than his father ) then.

E. relative adj. change for degrees of comparison, when used figuratively.

e.g. She has a more iron will than you have