Morphological structure of a word. Classification of Morphemes

8. The Verb. The category of Voice

The verb is a part of speech, which expresses a process or action. The verb is characterized by a developed system of morphological categories. They are: tense, aspect, voice, mood, correlation, posteriority, person, number. Verbs are connected 1) with a preceding or following noun (children play, play chess); 2) with adverbs which is the most characteristic of the verb (play well); 3) occasionally with adj.s (married young). In a sentence a verb is always a simple verbal predicate.

Morphologically a verb may be in a finite form or non-finite (Indefinite, Gerund, Participle).
Syntactically verbs may be objective & subjective.
Semantically verbs may be terminative & non-terminative, the former expressing an action limited in time, the latter expressing an action having no limits in time.

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