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Description:
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Categories of the verb in natural languages include tense, aspect, modality
(mood) and voice. Among these, voice, in its rich and diverse
manifestations, is perhaps the most complex. But most prior research
concentrates on only certain types, predominantly passives. Voice expresses
relations between a predicate and a set of nominal positions - or their
referents - in a clause or other structure. Grammatical Voice is the first
typological study of voice systems based on a multi-language survey. It
introduces a threefold classification of voice types, in the first place
distinguishing passivization phenomena (derived voice) from active-middle
systems (basic voice); and further, distinguishing each of these from
pragmatically grounded voice behaviours, such as focus and inverse systems.
As the first comprehensive study of voice systems and voice typology, this
book makes a significant contribution to current research in linguistics
and grammatical theory.
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