Interrelation of the two types of aspect

States (and sometimes achievements) cannot form Progressive

a. *She was knowing the answer. b. ?She was winning the race.

Dowty (1979): The Imperfective Paradox

a. John was drawing a circle. b. John drew a circle.

c. John was pushing a cart. d. John pushed a cart.

The question of perfect.

The Reichenbach tradition: Perfect is a tense, since it is interpreted as Priorian past; in addition, it can co-exist with Progressive (clearly an aspect).

Klein (1995): Perfect is an aspect: tenses are relations between the speech time and reference time - the perfect doesn’t relate the speech time to the reference time; - aspects are relations between the reference time and the event time - perfect does express this relationship.

Alexiadou et al. (2003) and other scholars: Perfect is a relative tense: it relates the reference time to some other time in the past (a second reference time?)

From (Pancheva (2003)): there are three types of Perfect

a. Since 2000 Alexandra has lived in LA. UNIVERSAL

b. Alexandra has been in LA (before). EXPERIENTIAL

c. Alexandra has just arrived in LA. RESULTATIVE

5. The verb: voice.

The essence of voice as a grammatical category of the verb.

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 the verb. The sign marking the passive form is the combination of the auxiliary be with the past participle of the conjugated verb (in symbolic notation: be ... en — see Ch. II, § 5). The passive form as the strong member of the opposition expresses reception of the action by the subject of the syntactic construction (i.e. the "passive" subject, denoting the object of the action); the active form as the weak member of the opposition leaves this meaning unspecified, i.e. it expresses "non-passivity".

The question about the number of voices in Modern English.

There are Active and Passive Voices.

The Active Voice shows a Subject the action of which is applied to an object: Мастер ремонтирует машину. The mechanic is repairing a car.

The Passive Voice shows that the Subject is an object to which the action is applied: Дом строится строителями. The house is being built by construction workers.

In this question we can mention different types of verbs. Transitive verbs denote actions directed at specific objects помыть (посуду), убрать (мусор). The action denoted by the transitive verb need an object and can't do without it. The object could be:

1. Nouns and pronouns in the Accusative case without a preposition: выпить вина (drink wine), рубить дрова(cut logs)

2. Genitive case when a part of the whole meant: налить вина (pour wine)

3. Genitive case in negation: нет слышал птиц (didn't hear any birds), не давал словарь(didn't give the dictionary)

Transitive verbs can form passive participles: одеть - одетый, распилить – распиленный (to dress -dressed, to saw -sawn)

Intransitive verbs denote actions not directed at any objects: поздороветь - become bigger (when speaking of a person), кричит - screams. They cannot be used in the Accusative without a preposition.

Reflective verbs could be froms of both transitive and intransitive verbs.

The sphere of the category in the morphological system of the English verb.

The category of voice differs radically from all the other hitherto considered categories from the point of view of its referential qualities. Indeed, all the previously described categories reflect various characteristics of processes, both direct and oblique, as certain facts of reality existing irrespective of the speaker's perception. For instance, the verbal category of person expresses the personal relation of the process. The verbal number, together with person, expresses its person-numerical relation. The verbal primary time denotes the absolutive timing of the process, i.e. its timing in reference to the moment of speech. The category of prospect expresses the timing of the process from the point of view of its relation to the plane of posteriority. Finally, the analysed aspects characterize the respective inner qualities of the process. So, each of these categories does disclose some actual property of the process denoted by the verb, adding more and more particulars to the depicted processual situation. But we cannot say the same about the category of voice.

As a matter of fact, the situation reflected by the passive construction does not differ in the least from the situation reflected by the active construction — the nature of the process is preserved intact, the situational participants remain in their places in their unchanged quality. What is changed, then, with the transition from the active voice to the passive voice, is the subjective appraisal of the situation by the speaker, the plane of his presentation of it. It is clearly seen when comparing any pair of constructions one of which is the passive counterpart of the other.

Cf.: The guards dispersed the crowd in front of the Presidential Palace. → The crowd in front of the Presidential Palace was dispersed by the guards. In the two constructions, the guards as the doer of the action and the crowd as the recipient of the action are the same; the same also is the place of action, i.e. the space in front of the Palace. The presentation planes, though, are quite different with the respective constructions, they are in fact mutually re-verse. Namely, the first sentence, by its functional destination, features the act of the guards, whereas the second sentence, in accord with its meaningful purpose, features the experience of the crowd. This property of the category of voice shows its immediate connection with syntax, which finds expression in direct trans-formational relations between the active and passive constructions.

Two approaches to the analysis of the construction be + Participle II.

Another problem posed by the category of voice and connected with neutralizations concerns the relation between the morphological form of the passive voice and syntactical form of the corresponding complex nominal predicate with the pure link be. As a matter of fact, the outer structure of the two combinations is much the same.

Cf.: You may consider me a coward, but there you are mistaken. They were all seised in their homes. The first of the two examples presents a case of a nominal predicate, the second, a case of a passive voice form. Though the constructions are outwardly alike, there is no doubt as to their different grammatical status. The question is, why? As is known, the demarcation between the construction types in question is commonly sought on the lines of the se-mantic character of the constructions. Namely, if the construction expresses an action, it is taken to refer to the passive voice form; if it expresses a state, it is interpreted as a nominal predicate.

Cf. another pair 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 ex- pressed 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 under-stood as a case of the finite passive in the categorial sense.

E.g.:The young practitioner was highly esteemed in his district.