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VOICE

VOICE. Professor Flavia Cunha 2013/2. What is voice ?. Voice is a grammatical category which makes possible to view the action of a sentence in two ways, without changing the facts reported. Examples:. The butler murdered the detective. The detective was murdered by the butler.

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VOICE

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  1. VOICE Professor Flavia Cunha 2013/2

  2. What is voice? Voice is a grammatical category which makes possible to view the action of a sentence in two ways, without changing the facts reported.

  3. Examples: The butler murdered the detective. The detective was murdered by the butler. Sentence (a) is in the active voice, and (b) is in the passive voice.

  4. Voice Constraints • The verb In addition to intransitive verbs, which are never used in the passive, some transitive verbs do not occur in the passive.

  5. Voice Constraints • verbs of containing (e.g. contain, hold, comprise) * Twenty slices of bread are contained by the packet. • verbs of measure (weigh, cost, contain, last) * Five dollars is cost by the parking fine.

  6. Voice Constraints • reciprocal verbs (resemble, look like, equal) * Maria is resembled by her father. • verbs of fitting (fit suit) * He is suited by the jacket.

  7. Voice Constraints • verbs of possession (have, belonging) * A car is had by him. • with some verbs only the passive is possible: * John was born in the late fifties. * John was said to be a good teacher.

  8. Voice Constraints • The object Co-reference between subject and nominal objects blocks the passive transformation, and occurs with (a) reflexive, (b) reciprocal, and (c) possessive pronouns in the object.

  9. Voice Constraints • John could see himself in the mirror. * Himself could be seen in the mirror. • We could hardly see each other in the fog. * Each other could hardly be seen in the fog.

  10. Voice Constraints • The meaning The passive usually does not affect the meaning of a sentence, but it does affect the way you think about the information in a sentence because it changes the usual order of the subject and object of an active sentence.

  11. Voice Constraints Still a change of meaning may accompany a change of voice in verb phrases containing auxiliaries that have more than one meaning, e.g. shall, will and can. • John cannot do it. (ability) • It cannot be done (by John) (possibility)

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