Typology of the category of voice

The Category of Voice, is a verbal category which characterizes different relations between subject and object and is realized in endings of verbs. The number of voices is different in different languages from 5 to 2. In russian, vebrs may belong to active, passive or reflective, or middle voice. So there are 3 voices in russian. Active voice is expressed syntactically and shows an action directed at an object., expressed by a noun in the accusative case without any preposition like (мальчик читает книгу) Middle voice is formed of a verb in the active voice with the help of the suffix (- ся) which shows the direction of an action to its doer. Verbs in the reflecsive voice, may be of 5 types.

1. Verbs denoting an action, when the subject and the object- is one and the same person like (обутся, умытся) Affix has the meaning oneself.

2. Verbs denoting the action of 2 or more persons each of them is a performer of an action, and at the same time, the object of an action. Affix –ся has the meaning “each other”(обниматься- здороваться)

3. Verbs denoting inner state of the subject, its feelings and emotions (обрадоватся, опечалится)

4. Verbs denoting actions, performed by a subject for its own purposes (запасаться, собираться)

5. Verbs denoting actions without its reference to an object, but as a characteristic feature of a subject itself (собака кусается)

Passive Voice shows that a subject of the sentence, doesn’t perform any action, but is influences by it. In English, only 2 voices have morphological expression: active and passive.

Only transitive verbs have forms of the voice. Intransitive verbs,such as verbs of motion (to go, to swim) verbs denoting position in space (to lie- to sit, to stand) and verbs of physical state have no voice distinctions. Comparison of forms of voices in 2 languages shows, their function in speech is quite different. Passive Voice in English, is used if the subject of the sentence is influenced by some action, while in russian, in such cases, active voice is more often used with direct object in the accusative case (this house was built by students) and in russian (этот дом построили студенты) Predicates, in active voice in russian, usually correspond predicates in passive voice in english (нам сообщили новость)and (we were heard the news).