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of examples:
The door was closed by the butler as softly as could be. The door on the left was closed.
The predicate of the first sentence displays the "passive of action", i.e. it is expressed by a verb used in the
passive voice; the predicate of the second sentence, in accord with the cited semantic interpretation, is
understood as displaying the "passive of state", i.e. as consisting of a link-verb and a nominal part expressed by
a past participle.
Of course, the factor of semantics as the criterion of the dynamic force of the construction is quite in its
place, since the dynamic force itself is a meaningful factor of language. But the "technically" grammatical
quality of the construction is determined not by the meaning in isolation; it is determined by the categorial
and functional properties of its constituents, first and foremost, its participial part. Thus, if this part, in
principle, expresses processual verbality, however statal it may be in its semantic core, then the whole
construction should be understood as a case of the finite passive in the categorial sense. E.g.:
The young practitioner was highly esteemed in his district.
If, on the other hand, the participial part of the construction doesn't convey the idea of processual
verbality, in other words, if it has ceased to be a participle and is turned into an adjective, then the whole
construction is to be taken for a nominal predicate. But in the latter case it is not categorially passive at all.
Proceeding from this criterion, we see that the predicate in the construction "You are mistaken" (the first
example in the presentparagraph) is nominal simply by virtue of its notional part being an adjective, not a
participle. The corresponding non-adjectival participle would be used in quite another type of constructions.
Cf:.
I was often mistaken for my friend Otto, though I never could tell why.
On the other hand, this very criterion shows us that the categorial status of the predicate in the sentence
"The door was closed" is wholly neutralized in so far as it is categorially latent, and only a living context may
de-neutralize it both ways. In particular, the context including the by-phrase of the doer (e.g. by the butler) de-
neutralizes it into the passive form of the verb; but the context in the following example de-neutralizes it into
the adjectival nominal collocation:
The door on the left was closed, and the door on the right was open.
Thus, with the construction in question the context may have both voice-suppressing, "statalizing" effect,
and voice-stimulating, "processualizing" effect. It is very interesting to note that the role of processualizing
stimulators of the passive can be performed, alongside action-modifying adverbials, also by some categorial
forms of the verb itself, namely, by the future, the continuous, and the perfect-i.e. by the forms of the time-
aspect order other than the indefinite imperfect past and present. The said contextual stimulators are especially
important for limitive verbs, since their past participles combine the semantics of processual passive with that
of resultativc perfect. Cf.:
The fence is painted.-The fence is painted light green.-The fence is to be painted.-The fence will be painted.
- The fence has just been painted. - The fence is just being painted.
The fact that the indefinite imperfect past and present are left indifferent to this gradation of dynamism in
passive constructions bears one more evidence that the past and present of the English verb constitute a separate
grammatical category distinctly different from the expression of the future (see Ch. XIV).
C H A P T E R XVII
VERB: MOOD
§ 1. The category of mood, undoubtedly, is the most controversial category of the verb. On the face of it,
the principles of its analysis, the nomenclature, the relation to other categories, in particular, to tenses, all this
has received and is receiving different presentations and appraisals with different authors. Very significant in
connection with the theoretical standing of the category are the following words by BA. Ilyish: "The category
of mood in the present English verb has given rise to so many discussions, and has been treated in so many
different ways, that it seems hardly possible to arrive at any more or less convincing and universally acceptable
conclusion concerning it" (Ilyish, 99].