Курсовая работа: Structural-semantic and functional features of the category of voice in languages of different system

Another type of neutralization of the prospective time opposition is observed in modal verbs and modal word combinations. The basic peculiarity of these units bearing on the expression of time is, that the prospective implication is inherently in-built in their semantics, which reflects not the action expressed by the infinitive. For that reason, the present verb-form of these units actually renders the idea of the future. Cf.: There is no saying what may happen next. At any rate, the woman was sure to come later in the day. But do you have to present the report before Sunday, there’s no alternative .

Sometimes the explicit expression of the future is necessary even with modal collocations. To make up for the lacking categorical forms, special modal substitutes have been developed in language, some of which have received the status of suppletive units. Cf.: But do not make plans with David. You will not be able to carry them out. Things will have to go one way or the other .

Alongside of the above and very different from them, there is still another typical case of neutralization of the analyzed categorical opposition, which is strictly obligatory. It occurs in clauses of time and condition. Whose verb-predicate expresses a future action? Cf.: If things turn out as has been arranged, the triumph will be all ours. I repeated my request to notify me at once whenever the messenger arrived .

The latter type of neutralization is syntactically conditioned. In point of fact, the neutralization consists here in the primary tenses shifting from the sphere of absolutive time into the sphere of relative time, since they become dependent not on their immediate orientation towards the moment of speech, but on the relation to another time level, namely, the time level presented in the governing clause of corresponding complex sentence.

This kind of neutralizing relative use of absolutive tense forms occupies a restricted position in the integral tense system of English. In Russian, the syntactic relative use of tenses is, on the contrary, widely spread. In particular, this refers to the presentation of reported speech in the plane of past, where the Russian present tense is changed into the tense of similarity, the past tense is changed into the tense of priority, and the future tense is changed in the tense of prospected posteriority. Cf.: 1) Он сказал, что изучает немецкий язык. 2) Он сказал, что изучал немецкий язык. 3) Онсказал, чтобудетизучатьнемецкийязык.

In English, the primary tenses in similar syntactic condition retain their absolutive nature and are used in keeping with their direct, unchangeable meanings. Compare the respective translations of the examples cited above: 1) He said that he was learning German. 2) He said that he had learned German. 3) he said that he would learn German.

It doesn’t follow from this that rule of sequence of tenses in English complex sentences formulated by traditional grammar should be rejected as false. Sequence of tenses is an important feature of all narration, for, depending in the continual consecutive course of actual events in reality; they are presented in the text in definite successions ordered against a common general background. However, what should be stressed here is that the tense-shift involved in the translation of the present-plane reported information into the present0plane reported information is not a formal, but essentially a meaningful procedure.

1.3 General notion of the problem of voice in English Grammar

The verbal category of voice shows the direction of the process as regards the participants of the situation reflected in the syntactic construction.

The voice of the English verb is expressed by the opposition of the passive form of the verb to the active form of is the combination of the auxiliary be with the past participle of the conjugated verb. The passive form as the strong member of the opposition expresses reception of the action by the subject of the syntactic cons