7. Verb as a part of speech.
Grammatically the verb is die most complex part of speech. This is due to the central role in performs in die sentence: predicative function, establishing the connection between the situation named in the utterance and reality. Formally, the verb is changed according to die categories of person and number, u-n.se, aspect, voice and mood. Besides, each verb has a specific set of non-finite forms (the infinitive, die gerund, participles I and II) Formally, the verb is characterized by a set of specific word-building affixes, e.g.: to activate, to widen, to classify, to synchronize, to overestimate, toreread. On the upper level, all the verbs according to their semantic (nominative) value fall into two big sub-classes: the sub-class of notional verbs and the sub-class of functional and semi-functional verbs. Notional verbs have full nominative value and are independent in the expression of the process, e.g.: to work, to build, to lie, to love, etc.; these verbs comprise the bulk of the class and constitute an open group of words. Functional and semi-functional (or, semi-notional) verbs make a closed group of verbs of partial nominative value. They are dependent on other words in the denotation of the process, but through their forms the predicative semantics of the sentence is expressed (they function as predicators).
THE CATEGORY OF VOICE
The verbal category of voice shows the direction of the process as regards the participants of the situation reflected in the syntactical construction. The voice of the English verb is expressed by the opposition of the passive form of the verb to the active one. The sign marking the passive form Is the combination of the auxiliary be with the past participle of the conjugated verb.
Besides passive and active constructions, there are also the so-called“medial” voice types, whose status is problematic: semantically, they are neither strictly passive nor active, though the verb used is formally active. There are three “medial” voice types distinguished in English: “reflexive”, “reciprocal”, and “middle”. In reflexive constructions the action performed by the referent of the subject is not passed to any outer object, but to the referent itself, i.e. the subject of the action is the object of the action at the same time, e.g.: He dressed quickly. This meaning can be rendered explicitly by the reflexive “-self” pronouns, e.g.: He dressed himself; He washed himself; etc. In reciprocal constructions the subject denotes a group of doers whose actions are directed towards each other; again, the subject of the action is its object at the same time, e.g.: They struggled; They quarreled; etc. This meaning can be rendered explicitly with the help of the reciprocal pronouns one another, each other, with one another, e.g.: They quarreled with each other. In middle constructions the subject combined with the otherwise transitive verb is neither the doer of the action nor its immediate object, the action is as if of its own accord, e.g.: The door opened; The concert began; The book reads easily; The book sells like hot cakes. The same applies to the use of the active infinitive in the function of an attribute, cf.: She is pleasant to look at; The first thing to do is to write a letter. These constructions can be treated as a specific case of neutralization: the weak member of the opposition, the active voice form, when used instead of the strong member, the passive form, does not fully coincide with it in meaning, but denotes something intermediary - the state or the capacity of the referent as a result of some action. Some of these construction are closer in their meaning to the passive voice meaning (The book sells… = The book is sold…; The first thing to do… = The first thing to be done…); others are closer to the active voice meaning (The concert began), but in general their meaning is between the two.
The category of moodThe category of mood expresses the character of connections between the process denoted by the verb and actual reality, in other words, it shows whether the action is real or unreal. The category of mood is one of the most complicated categories of the English verb and Is approached from different viewpoints. The majority of linguists single out 3 types of mood: Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive.
THE INDICATIVE MOOD.The use of the indicative mood shows that the speaker represents the action as real (in Present, Past or Future). The reality of the utterance may be relative and may not correspond with the reality, but the speaker represents it as a real fact.
If only she helped me! I am going away on business shortly.
THE IMPERATIVE MOOD differs from all other moods as it has no person, number, tense and aspect distinctions
it is limited in its use to one type of sentences - only imperative ones.
The speaker expresses inducement: Go home! Open the door!; Keep quiet, please.
THE SUBJUNCTIVE MOODexpresses variousattitudes of the speaker: desire, consideration (supposition, suggestion, hypothesis), inducement (recommendation, request, command, order),
The problem is very complicated because:
Together with old, synthetic (be, were) analytic fomts with the same meaning (should, would +Inf) are used;
One and the same form may have different meanings, e.g knew;
The usage of the forms of Subjunctive moods can be defined by the structure of the sentence where they are used, I wish + Past Plural (were),
To express unreal actions (hypothetical, desirable, possible) the forms, coinciding with the indicative mood.
I want you to open the door!
