Содержание:

Introduction. 6

Chapter I. Theoretical aspects of evolution
of the passive voice. 11

1.1 The problematic of the definition of the Diathesis and
Voice. 11

1.2 Category of the voice and diathesis in Russian. 17

1.3    Category of the voice and diathesis
in German. 22

Chapter II. Diathesis in Russian and German
languages. 33

2.1 Grammatical means of expressing voice values in German. 33

2.2 Grammatical means of expressing voice in Russian. 39

2.3 A comparative review of the forms of voice and
diathesis in Russian and German  42

Conclusion. 45

Bibliography. 47

Введение:

A person performs various actions on objects of the
world around him — this is a common, many times repeated situation. But there
is another situation — the impact of a person on himself — his body, his
thoughts and feelings. This situation is usually referred to as "the
action returns to itself". To indicate this "reflexive
"situation, languages have developed special means that are called"
reflexive": pronouns, verbs, special words and expressions. All of them
are known, described in one way or another in the linguistic literature, but
they have not yet been comprehended in unity, in interrelation as means that
serve a single semantic category. This determines the relevance of our
research. In our work, an attempt is made to understand the category of Voice and Diathesis in Russian and German languages
through a comprehensive analysis of the semantics of reflexive pronouns and
synonymous means. Comparison will allow us to better understand the nature of
the category of Voice and Diathesis (reversion), to identify in its linguistic embodiment
universal and idioethnic. To date, there are a large number of opinions about
the definition of voice. According to many linguists, the voice is a
grammatical category of a verb that expresses subject-object relations. The problem of Voice and Diathesis of verbs has long been studied by many
scientists, in particular Yu. S. Stepanov, L. A. Dolgopolova, V. V. Vinogradov,
V. N. Yartseva, L. S. Kryuchkova, V.A. Plungjan, A. A. Kholodovich, I. A. Melchuk and many others, who expressed very different views on the classification
of verbs. The articles by A. A. Kholodovich "Voice", V. S. Khrakovsky
"Constructions of passive voice (definition and calculus)", and G. G.
Silyshtsky "Voice and valence" present preliminary considerations
regarding the construction of the theory of Voice and consider empirical
material that is problematic to classify as collateral. There are several
trends in its research, depending on the semantic — syntactic (subject and
object) or formal-grammatical (subject, complement) approaches. The doctrine of
the verb voice in linguistic science has a long history and is based on several
hypotheses.

The concept of diathesis, which differs from the traditional concept of
voice, was introduced into scientific circulation. According to the definition
of I. A. Melchuk and A. Holodovich «the concept of diathesis is a semantic-syntactic and universal; any verbal
lexeme in any language has at least one Diathes and the concept of voice is
morphological and not universal — there is not any verb lexeme and in any
language presents at least two formally different from each other with
word-forms which correspond to different diathesis.»[22]

The category of diathesis is one of the least studied sections in German
functional grammar. In Russian linguistics, there are various theories on the
designation of diathesis. The science of diathesis is a fundamental part of the
General teaching of the verb system. Based on the model of Kholodovich–Khrakovsky,
R. Lech writes: "any predicative or attributive construction is considered
as passive, the diathesis structure of which excludes the correspondence of the
subject or main member of the determinative combination (at the syntactic
level) to the agent (carrier, producer of action, subject) at the semantic
level”.

The relevance of the research topic due to the need for a systematic study
of the categories of voice and diathesis with the functional-semantic point of
view, and also the fact that in modern German linguistics, the problem of voice
and diathesis verb categories in a comparative perspective with Russian still
have not received a deep comprehensive coverage, particularly against similar
entities in the Russian language.

 The purpose of the research is to examine and analyze the category of Voice
and Diathesis in Russian and German languages as a special semantic entity
served by a systemically organized set of language tools.

To achieve the purpose we coped with the following tasks:

— to consider the
concept of the category of voice and diathesis in Russian and German languages;

-to describe the forms of expression of the voice and
diathesis — give examples of the use of the voice and diathesis;

-to describe the
peculiarities of the use of the voice in Russian as compared to the German
language;

 -to conduct an
analysis on the peculiarities of the forms of voice and diathesis in the
Russian language in comparison with German, and vice versa.

 The object of research is the
characteristic of passive voice in German and Russian.

The subject of this  work is to
consider the Diathesis in Russian and German.

The methods of investigation
included contrastive, distributive, componential analyses.

Performing these tasks will help to solve the question
of the validity of the category of Voice and Diathesis
as
a special functional and semantic category of the language and their places
among other language categories.

Scientific novelty. The novelty of our research is
determined by the fact that we attempt a comprehensive semantic analysis of the
nuclear means of expressing reflexivity — reflexive pronouns with the
involvement of other means that convey reflexivity, and establish their
hierarchy.

Practical importance. The results of the research can
be used in lectures on theoretical grammar, lexicology, translation theory and
practice, as well as in teaching Russian and German as a foreign language.

The structure of work. The work consists of an introduction,
two chapters, a conclusion, and a list of references. The introduction presents
the characteristics of the main parameters of the study on the topic of
research, the relevance of the problem is formulated, the object, subject and
methods of research are defined, its purpose and tasks defined by it are
indicated.

In the first Chapter of the work, a theoretical basis
for research is created: the first paragraph presents material on the
classification of German verbs, on the means and methods of verb formation in
the German language, and considers the concept of reflexive verbs in German and
Russian.

The
practical part of the thesis will be based on the empirical data from the,
Russian-German, as well German-Russian parallel corpuses of the NKRJ (Nacionalnyj
Korpus Russkogo Jazyka).

In the
conclusion of my paper I tried to draw some results from the investigations
made within the main part of my work.

Заключение:

One of the grammatical categories of the German verb
is the voice. The voice in German can be active (Aktiv) or passive (Passiv). In
the active voice, the action proceeds from the subject, that is, the actor is
active, and in the passive it is directed at him, that is, it is, respectively,
passive. Thus, in the active voice in German, the main emphasis is placed on
the one (the one) who produces the action (what causes it), and in the passive
voice, the most important thing is what is done, produced (not so important by
whom).

The voice in German exists in two forms: Vorgangspassiv
(procedural passive) and Zustandspassiv (state passive). If Vorgangspassiv is
used to express an action or process, then Zustandspassiv passes the completed
action and its result.

The Vorgangspassiv voice in German is usually formed
by transitive verbs, with the corresponding tense form "werden"
(auxiliary verb) being taken in Indikativ (indicative mood) or Konjunktiv
(subjunctive mood) and Partizip II (semantic verb).

The Zustandspassiv voice in German denotes the static
result of a dynamic process or action, that is, an action or process that is
currently completed. Since Zustandspassiv does not convey any action, it cannot
be formed by verbs whose semantics include the designation of an action or
process. It is formed only by transitive verbs or intransitive verbs that
convey the result of an action or process in a semantic sense. In this case,
the corresponding time form "sein" (auxiliary verb) is taken in
Indikativ (indicative mood) or Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood) and Partizip II
(semantic verb). When using Zustandspassiv, the offer very rarely contains an
indication of the manufacturer or source of the action.

We also found out that the concepts of "voice"
and" diathesis "have a difference, when considering which, we noticed
that "diathesis" is semantic-syntactic and universal, and "voice"
is a morphological concept that is not universal. It follows that the verb form
reflects the fact that the subjects and the supplement change places. The main
meaning of a voice is to deprive the original subject of its privileged status.
Diathesis – a set of participants in a situation denoted by a verb, with their
semantic roles and communicative ranks.

As we know, the ways of expressing the passive voice
in the languages of the world are divided into two types: constructions with a
passive marker and without it (the so-called semantic passive turns). Marked
passive constructions include morphological or lexical markers (prepositions
and auxiliary words).

In our research, we paid attention to how passive is
expressed in Russian. The passive voice in Russian is expressed on
morphological and syntactic levels. In modern Russian, the passive participle
and postfix — ся
are the morphological means of expressing the passive meaning. In Russian, the affix- ся is polysemous, it has not only a passive meaning, but
also the meaning of reflexivity, reciprocity; it is often used in the medial
voice. In Russian for the expression of the passive voice are commonly used
indefinite-personal and impersonal sentences. The
second method is expressed analytically by combining the copula быть with
the short form of the passive participle.

In the second сhapter, examples of the use of passive constructions
in the novel "Three comeraden" by E. M. Remarque are considered.
According to the results of the analysis, it can be noted that the use of collateral
constructions in the Russian language is limited. It should be noted that
passive constructions in German are more productive and used than in Russian.
The most common is the subject-free construction. It serves to actualize a verb
with the meaning of some action. In the subject-agentive passive construction,
in addition to the verb, the agent or source, i.e. the cause, is also
actualized.

Passive constructions are more often used in German than
in Russian, primarily for creating an actual sentence division, namely, for
updating an event-action, as well as (in the agentive passive) and its
performer.

Minor differences relate to the use of individual
prepositions in voice constructions.

Фрагмент текста работы:

Chapter I. Theoretical aspects of evolution of the
passive voice

1.1 The problematic of the definition of the Diathesis
and Voice

The grammatical structure (grammatical meanings and categories) reflects
the inner essence and laws of language functioning, representing the specifics
of its ontology. Accordingly, lexical meanings and word associations reflect
the categorization of natural objects, while grammatical meanings and categories
reflect the categorization of objects that are natural to the language (and
conditional in relation to the external world).

The problem of passive voice in linguistic long attracted the attention of
scientists. Nowadays, there is a lot of experience in studying various aspects
of this category. The main point of contention is the definition of the essence
of the collateral value. In some languages, the category of voice is absent,
for example, in

languages of the ergative system. In German, English and Russian the terms
active voice and passive voice are used to refer to the real and passive
voices. Voice indicates a specific relationship between the members of the sentence. Passive constructions express a certain vision of the situation: they shift
the observer’s point of view (empathy) to the object. As noted by R. Langar in
the number of human abilities includes the ability to imagine and describe the
same situation in different linguistic forms (Langacker 2006).

The concept of diathesis was proposed by A. A. Kholodovich in the early 70s
as part of the universal concept of voice.

The concept of «diathesis — is a correspondence between the roles of the
verb lexeme (subject, object, addressee) and their expressing members (subject
and complements)» (Kholodovich 1979: 117). For example, in the sentence

Мужчина открывает дверь — The man opens the door.

 active form the verb открывает has the following diateza: the word мужчина — the subject the action stands in the nominative case and takes the
position of grammatical subject, the word дверь -the object of the action acts
the accusative case and is the grammatical object.

Дверь открывается водителем — The door is by driver opened.

In the sentence the passive form of the verb открывается has another diatheses: the word водителем goes into the position of the grammatical object and is in the form of the
indirect case and take the position agentive
add-on (role of participant in a situation the participant that controls the
situation, directly takes the corresponding action is "energy source"
of this action"), and the word дверь— the object stands in the nominative case and takes the position of subject
(Kotin 1998)

 On the one hand, the voice is
traditionally distinguished by the morphological features of the verb
associated with the expression of subject-object

relations, and the section «voice» is there in any grammar in morphology. On
the other hand, there are constructions that are contrasted by features,
related to subject-object relations, the study of which rests on the theory of voice.
Linguists have tried to approach the theory of the voice from a syntactic
position, considering the form of the sentence. The voice in this concept is defined
as a grammatically marked diathesis in the verb.

According to V. A. Plungian have collateral no semantics, this category is
merely converting syntactic structures sentence: subject and complement as to
change places, and this the fact is reflected in the verbal form, it is design
by means of permutations participants in the situation, for example:

Мама причесывает дочку. — Дочка причесывается мамой (Plungjan 2000:193) Mom combs her daughter’s hair.- The daughter’ hair is brushed by her mother.

Diatheses is the correspondence between semantic actants (participants) and
syntactic actants of the given verb lexeme, (Kholodovich 1970: 13) and (Melchuk,
Kholodovich 1970: 114). As for the voice, it was defined as «grammatically
marked in the verb diathesis» (Kholodovich 1970: 13; Melchuk, Kholodovich 1970:
117). Thus, under the proposed concept of diathesis and the voice as
correlative concepts of different levels: the concept of diathesis is a
semantic-syntactic and universal — any verbal lexeme in any language has at
least one Diathese and the concept of voice is morphological and not universal
— not every verb lexeme and not in any language presents at least two formally
different from each other the concept of diatheses and voice with word forms
that relate to different diatheses.

Voice is the grammatical category of the verb. It that shows the direction
of the process as regards to the participants of the situation: in the active-voice
construction, the process issues from the subject (the agent or doer); in the passive-voice
construction, the process issues from the Agentive Adjunct.

Die Erdbeben zerstört  die Stadt.

Die Stadt wurde vom Erdbeben
zerstört.

The city was destroyed by the
earthquake.

Example (1) is in activ voice because the subject is
aligned with an active
role, the role of the Agent: Erdbeben  carries
out the process.

Example (2) is in passive voice because the subject, Die
Erdbeben  is associated with a passive
role, the role of the affected: Die Erdbeben are the entity on which the action
is performed. 

The category of the voice conveys the relation between
the subject and the action, or, in another way, this category of the verb
expresses the relation between the subject and the object of the action.

The object (Die Erdbeben) becomes the subject.

The verb is replaced by the adapted form of the
auxiliary verb and the main verb in Patisiple .

The subject becomes an object in the third case (vom
Erdbeben).

The "active-passive" opposition is expressed
by a number of grammatical forms which include the categories of tense, aspect,
and mood: sehen-wird (wurde) gesehen.

The voice category has its own meaning, just like
tense