The English Verb System – Contrastive Approach 1 December 14, 2018 Lesson 9 VOICE (Part 1) Brinton, L.J. (2000). The Structure of Modern English: a Linguistic Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, p. 117. The category of voice, though usually considered a verb category, is actually both syntactically and semantically relevant to the whole sentence. D. Crystal (A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics): A change in the relation between the grammatical subject and object without changing the factual meaning of a sentence.
While the active may be expressed by the simple forms of the verb, the passive is as a rule expressed periphrastically: by be + the past participle, as in The report was written (by the committee), or by get + the past participle, as in The criminal got caught (by the police). In the passive, the logical subject – the agent – moves out of the position of grammatical subject and is relegated to a by-phrase. (Palmer 1989: 78) Passive - a structure requiring a non-agentive subject ; the syntactic rearrangement of verb’s arguments – the shift in semantic roles. Other arguments/semantic roles can also fill the subject position in passive (recipient, instrument, location). Various semantic roles can occur as the subjects of the passive: e.g. I was given the letter. RECIPIENT The armchair was sat in all day by the old man. LOCATION The storm broke the window. CAUSE The key opened the door. INSTRUMENT Transformationally, a passive sentence derives from the deep structure of the corresponding active sentence: Penny + past + give + apple + to Leonard. Leonard was given the apple by Penny. The rules applied to the deep structure include: 1) agent postposing, 2) recipient preposing, 3) verb passivizing. Another distinction of voice is the middle voice: This is what Otto Jespersen calls a notional passive, a sentence which is active in form but passive in meaning. (Brinton 2000: 117) e.g. The shirt washes easily. (= ‘the shirt is easily washed’) These oranges peel easily. (= ‘these oranges are easily peeled’) The cake should cook slowly. (= ‘the cake should be slowly cooked) They differ from regular passives in that, not only do they occur without explicit agents, there is never even an implicit agent (e.g. These oranges peel easily by you.)
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Another example of active forms with passive meanings is the case of passive infinitives: e.g. These apples are ready to eat. (= ‘These apples are ready to be eaten.’) There are the dishes to do. (= ‘There are the dishes to be done.’)
Syntactically: the passive formula: NP1 Vt NP2 → NP2 be/get Ven (by NP1) I Rewrite these sentences in the passive voice. Write one corresponding passive sentence (or two if possible) beginning with the underlined words. 1) They presented Maria Svensson with the award last night. 2) People are blaming climate change for the recent flooding. 3) Somebody has described Keith Jones as the world’s greatest guitarist. 4) Somebody had stolen the painting from the gallery. 5) They will have cleared the litter from the pitch before the match starts. 6) People were watching the game outside the stadium on a huge screen. 7) Somebody will spray the walls with green paint. 8) Somebody should have offered Mary a drink when she arrived. 9) People will provide you with food for the journey. 10) They have planted the fields with cotton. II
Rewrite the following texts in the passive:
TEXT 1 The critics have greeted with enthusiams "Turning Point", Marvin Marton's new play. They regard it as his most mature work. Morton wrote it after he had studied human behavior for a considerable time. On the opening night the audience called Morton onto the stage and applauded him loudly. They are staging the play at the Apollo Theatre where they expect thousands of people to see it. Film companies have asked Morton to write a script for a film based on the play. We don't know yet whether Morton will seriously consider the proposal. TEXT 2 Some people saw a UFO in the sky above London last night. They reported to the police. The army sent a helicopter to look at it more closely. The UFO shot the helicopter down and killed both men in it. People have given photographs of the UFO to the police. UFO experts are researching them as we speak. TEXT 3 After 20 years of civil war, the Lebanese government is rebulding Beirut. They will construct new offices and hotels. The authorities must also expand Beirut airport. Luckily, bombing did not destroy archaeological sites. By the year 2000, building companies will have completed most of the work. Lebanon's new look will attract many tourists in the future. A few tourist groups have already visited this Middle Eastern paradise.
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