 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
83
subject. E.g.:
I've just been rung up by the police. The diplomat was refused transit facilities through London. She was
undisturbed by the frown on his face. Have you ever been told that you're very good-looking? He was said to
have been very wild in his youth. The dress has never been tried on. The child will be looked after all right. I
won't be talked to like this. Etc.
Still, not all the verbs capable of taking an object are actually used in the passive. In particular, the passive
form is alien to many verbs of the statal subclass (displaying a weak dynamic force), such as have (direct
possessive meaning), belong, cost, resemble, fall, misgive, etc. Thus, in accord with their relation to the passive
voice, all the verbs can be divided into two large sets: the set of passivized verbs and the set of non-passivized
verbs.
A question then should be posed whether the category of voice is a full-representative verbal category, i.e.
represented in the system of the verb as a whole, or a partial-representative category, confined only to the
passivized verbal set. Considerations of both form and function tend to interpret voice rather as a full-
representative category, the same as person, number, tense, and aspect. Three reasons can be given to back this
appraisal.
First, the integral categorial presentation of non-passivized verbs fully coincides with that of passivized
verbs used in the active voice (cf. takes-goes. is taking-is going, has token-has gone, etc.). Second, the active
voice as the weak member of the categorial opposition is characterized in general not by the "active" meaning
as such (i.e. necessarily featuring the subject as the doer of the action), but by the extensive non-passive
meaning of a very wide range of actual significations, some of them approaching by their process-direction
characteristics those of non-passivized verbs (cf. The door opens inside the room; The magazine doesn't sell
well). Third, the demarcation line between the passivized and non-passivized sets is by no means rigid, and the
verbs of the non-passivized order may migrate into the passivized order in various contextual conditions (cf.
The bed has not been slept in; The house seems not to have been lived in for a long time).
Thus, the category of voice should be interpreted as being reflected in the whole system of verbs, the non-
passivized verbs, presenting the active voice form if not directly, then indirectly.
As a regular categorial form of the verb, the passive voice is combined in the same lexeme with other
oppositionally strong forms of the verbal categories of the tense-aspect system, i.e. the past, the future, the
continuous, the perfect. But it has a neutralizing effect on the category of development in the forms where the
auxiliary be must be doubly employed as a verbid (the infinitive, the present participle, the past participle), so
that the future continuous passive, as well as the perfect continuous passive are practically not used in speech.
As a result, the future continuous active has as its regular counterpart by the voice opposition the future
indefinite passive; the perfect continuous active in all the tense-forms has as its regular counterpart the perfect
indefinite passive. Cf:.
The police will be keeping an army of reporters at bay. >An army of reporters will be kept at bay by the
police. We have been expecting the decision for a long time. > The decision has been expected for a long time.
§ 2. The category of voice differs radically from all the other hitherto considered categories from the point
of view of its referential qualities. Indeed, all the previously described categories reflect various characteristics
of processes, both direct and oblique, as certain facts of reality exiting irrespective of the speaker's perception.
For instance, the verbal category of person expresses the personal relation of the process. The verbal number,
together with person, expresses its person-numerical relation. The verbal primary time denotes the absolutive
timing of the process, i.e. its timing in reference to the moment of speech. The category of prospect expresses
the timing of the process from the point of view of its relation to the plane of posteriority. Finally, the analysed
aspects characterize the respective inner qualities of the process. So, each of these categories does disclose
some actual property of the process denoted by the verb, adding more and more particulars to the depicted
processual situation. But we cannot say the same about the category of voice.
As a matter of fact; the situation reflected by the passive construction does not differ in the least from the
situation reflected by the active construction - the nature of the process is preserved intact, the situational
participants remain in their places in their unchanged quality. What is changed, then, with the transition from
the active voice to the passive voice, is the subjective appraisal of the situation by the speaker, the plane of his
presentation of it. It is clearly seen when comparing any pair of constructions one of which is the passive
counterpart of the other. Cf.:
The guards dispersed the crowd in front of the Presidential Palace,—The crowd in front of the Presidential
Palace was dispersed by the guards.
In the two constructions, the guards as the doer of the action, the crowd as the recepient of the action are the