6) The Category of Voice.

The grammatical category of voice expresses the relations between the Subject and the Predicate showing whether the Subject is the doer or recipient of the action.

The category of voice is recognized when we deal with an action. Strictly speaking, all the linguists do not deny the existence of the Active and Passive Voice forms.

The planes of expression and content differentiate these two basic voice-forms. The marked member of the opposition is the passive voice-form. On the plane of expression it is marked by the presence of the auxiliary verb “to be” in the required tense-form and Participle II of the notional verb. On the plane of content these two verb-forms are also contrasted showing that the unmarked member of the opposition is the doer o source of the action.

e.g. He opened the door (the doer of the action).

The wind opened the door (the source of the action).

The door was opened by the wind (the recipient of the action).

When we deal with the Passive voice form, the actual doer of the action may remain unexpressed if it is of secondary significance or unknown, but when we want to specially name the doer of the action, it can be introduced with the preposition “by”. We should also remember that a means of an action should be introduced with the preposition “with”.

e.g. This book was written by a young writer. = A young writer wrote the book.

The book was covered with a newspaper. = Somebody covered the book with a newspaper.

In a number of cases the opposition between Active and Passive voice-forms can be reduced. We may have verb-forms which are active on the plane of expression and passive on the plane of content. In such cases the predicate verb usually denotes not an action but a kind of property.

e.g. This book sells well. This material wears well. The shop closes at 8 o’clock.

When dealing with the Passive Voice we are to comment on its coincidence with the nominal predicate on the plane of expression.

e.g. The door was closed by a watchman.

The door was closed but the window was open.

In the first sentence we deal with an action performed by a definite agent, while in the 2^nd sentence a state is expressed. “Was closed” in the 2nd sentence is parallel to “was open” which a Compound Nominal Predicate is, and so, likewise, “was closed” is a Compound Nominal Predicate.

But “was closed” in the 1^st sentence expresses an action and so it is a Simple Verbal Predicate in the Passive voice.

The principal difference between the homonymous forms like “was closed” lies on the plane of content, whether an action or state is expressed.

The idea of action can be expressed not only by the introduction of an agent or means of the action. It can also be hinted at by adverbial modifiers of manner, comparison, result or purpose.

e.g. The door was closed slowly.

The window was closed for the rain drops not to fall on the floor and furniture.

The door was closed as if something heavy had fallen down with a crash.

When a form like “was closed” is used as a chain in a sequence of actions, then it is undoubtedly a passive voice form.

e.g. The cab rode away, the gate was closed and the pupils ran back to their classrooms.

In spite of the fact that we differentiate two basic voice-forms, some authors speak of some other voice-forms, like the Reflexive Voice, the Reciprocal Voice and the Middle Voice.

The Reflexive Voice.

The problem of the Reflexive voice arises when we deal with such language units as “a verb + a reflexive pronoun”.

e.g. He hurt himself; she found herself in the yard; the dressed themselves.

Some authors say that in such cases we deal with a special reflexive voice-form in which the reflexive pronoun is treated as an auxiliary element. It means that they take similar units for analytical forms. Other scholars speak of free word-combinations in such cases. They say that the units under consideration consist of a verb in the active voice and an object to it, expressed by a reflexive pronoun.

At present the 2^nd opinion seems to be more convincing and some arguments can be given in its favour:

1) The reflexive pronoun denotes an object at which the action named by the verb is directed. In such phrases the reflexive pronoun can be replaced by some other word denoting an object or the verb can take two or more homogeneous objects, that is a reflexive pronoun and some other nouns or pronouns. The syntactic relations between the verb and the reflexive pronoun are similar to those between the verb and the other homogeneous object. So if we consider that there are syntactic relations between the verb and the reflexive pronoun then it is not an analytical voice-form, but a free word-combination.

e.g. He hurt himself or he hurt his finger, or he hurt him and himself, he hurt himself and his friend, he dressed himself and his younger brother.

2) The reflexive pronoun can take its own appositive attribute and it means that it can have independent of the head word syntactic relations, what is foreign to analytical forms, because the latter are treated as one unit.

Hence, the reflexive pronoun getting into syntactic relations of its own can’t be an auxiliary element. It is a self-dependent member of the sentence, that is an object.

e.g. He was defending himself, a victim of the plot. (an apposition to “himself”).

3) The meaning of the verb in most cases is not changed when we add a reflexive pronoun or drop it. The reflexive pronoun fills in the position of an object opened by the verb due to its transitive nature and syntactic valiancy [ei] in the process of producing a sentence. Not to fill it in can make the verb phrase or the sentence grammatically incomplete or deficient.

e.g. He hurt … (grammatically incomplete).

Moreover, sometimes when the subject and the object of the predicate verb denote the same agent, the reflexive pronoun can be easily omitted when the verb is used intransitively and that is foreign to auxiliaries in analytical verb-forms.

He dressed himself = he dressed;

He washed himself = he washed.

The omitted reflexive pronoun can be easily restored and should be restored when the verb takes two or more homogeneous objects.

e.g. He dressed and his younger brother – wrong.

He dressed himself and his younger brother – right

4) The reflexive pronoun has independent of the predicate verb syntactic relations with the subject, because it agrees with it in gender, number and person and that is foreign to analytical forms.

He dressed himself. They dressed themselves.

The reflexive pronoun is in secondary appositive relations with the subject and it can easily be separated from the verb to modify the subject when it becomes rhematic or the communicative centre of the utterance and that is impossible for analytical forms.

e.g. He hurt himself. It was he himself who was hurt.

However, those who recognize the existence of the Reflexive voice say that there are such verb-phrases with a reflexive pronoun which deny all or nearly all the arguments given above. They mean such phrases as: to find oneself, to pride oneself, to behave oneself.

We can’t say “he found himself and all the others in the yard”. The matter is that in such phrases the reflexive pronoun happens to change the meaning of the verb.

e.g. He found the book. He found himself in the street.

He behaved outrageously (вызывающе).

He behaved himself (должным образом).

To choose any point of view remains with the scholar. Nevertheless, it seems more reasonable to agree that in English there is no special reflexive voice. Mostly we deal with a free word combination, consisting of a verb in the Active Voice and a reflexive pronoun as an object to it. But there is a group of reflexive verbs which make up a lexico-semantic group. These verbs establish phraseological units with reflexive pronouns similar to bound phrases like: give up, look after, look for.

The Reciprocal Voice.

Some authors speak of a special reciprocal voice, when treating such word-combinations as: greeted each other or praised one another.

We can treat this problem the same way as the problem of the reflexive voice, but we can say at once that the relations between the verb and the reciprocal pronoun are even looser than those between the verb and the reflexive pronoun.

1) First of all it seems quite possible that the reciprocal pronoun can be coordinated with some other noun or pronoun in the function of an object and so it has syntactic relations with the verb what is foreign to analytical forms.

e.g. They kissed each other and the child. They passed one another and all the guests. So the reciprocal pronoun can hardly be an auxiliary.

2) Besides, the verb can freely function without the reciprocal pronoun in the same meaning.

e.g. The kissed and felt into a lively talk. They smiled and parted.

3) Sometimes a reciprocal pronoun can be joined to the verb with a preposition which marks the syntactic relations between the verb and the pronoun what is foreign to analytical forms.

e.g. They smiled to each other.

The reciprocal pronoun does not change the meaning of the verb. So it seems logical to consider that “a verb + a reciprocal pronoun” is not an analytical verb-form of the reciprocal voice. It is a free word-combination, in which the verb takes an object expressed by a reciprocal pronoun.

The Middle Voice.

Some authors speak of a special voice-form when comparing such sentences as:

I opened (1) the door and The door opened (2).

They say that in the 2^nd sentence the verb is used in the middle voice. We can’t deny that though there is no difference between the verb-forms on the plane of expression, there some difference between them on the plane of content. In sentences like “I opened the door” the subject is the doer of the action which is directed at some object. So it is a pure case of the Active Voice.

But in the sentence “The door opened” the Subject is not the doer of the action, it is sooner acted upon. So, on the plane of content it is close to the Passive Voice.

Taking into consideration the mixture of two principal voice-forms: active and passive in one verb-form, some scholars arrive at the conclusion that in the form like “opened (2)” we should speak of a special voice-form which they suggest calling “the middle voice”.

However it does not seem the best way out. Without a context the verb forms like “opened (1)” and “opened (2)” can not be opposed to each other, but without an opposition no morphological category can be established.

The difference between “opened (1)” and “opened (2)” is sooner of semantic nature and it can be revealed only on the syntactic level. The difference in the meaning happens to be caused by the lexical character of the verb, that is whether it is transitive, intransitive or medial. If the verbs are transitive the action of the verb is directed at some object which is an obligatory positional element for them. If the verb is intransitive it requires no object. Medial verbs, unlike both transitive and intransitive, don’t require an explicit member of the sentence, denoting the doer of the action or agent. It means that they can’t have any subject in the structure of the sentence, but the English declarative sentence structurally requires the presence of the Subject before the predicate the position of the subject is filled in by the object of the action. Thus, we can’t say “opened the door” in the meaning “открылась дверь”, so we say “the door opened”.

In such cases we can speak of using verbs of medial meaning. Medial verbs are a special type of transitive verbs which do not require any subject or agent.

However, we are to understand that transitive, intransitive and medial verbs are not necessarily different lexemes. There can be the same lexeme which can be used transitively, intransitively or medially in the Active Voice, influencing the structure of the sentence.

e.g. He stepped and broke the ice (transitive verb, active voice).

Many people broke in those conditions (intransitive verb, active voice).

The ice broke easily (medial verb, active voice).

Moreover, medial verbs can’t be used in the Passive voice, because they do not presuppose any doer of the action in the structure of the sentence, while Passive voice-forms do that.

Thus, speaking of the category of voice we can say that the English verb differentiates two morphological voice-forms – active and passive. Being of a general character, the active voice admits some variations in its principal meaning and that is reflected in the syntactic structure of the sentence. The most typical of such variations are the so-called Reflexive, Reciprocal and Middle Voice-forms.