Voice (grammar)

In grammar, the voice (also called diathesis and (rarely) gender (of verbs)) of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, the verb is said to be in the passive voice.

For example, in the sentence:

the verb "ate" is in the active voice. However, in the sentence:

the verbal phrase "was eaten" is passive.

In the sentence:

the verb "killed" is in the active voice, and the doer of the action is the "hunter". A passive version of the sentence is:

where the verbal phrase "was killed" is followed by the word "by" and then by the doer "hunter".

In a transformation from an active-voice clause to an equivalent passive-voice construction, the subject and the direct object switch grammatical roles. The direct object gets promoted to subject, and the subject demoted to an (optional) complement. In the examples above, the mouse serves as the direct object in the active-voice version, but becomes the subject in the passive version. The subject of the active-voice version, the cat, becomes part of a prepositional phrase in the passive version of the sentence, and can be left out entirely.

Human voice

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming etc. The human voice is specifically a part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the primary sound source. Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts; the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx, and the articulators. The lung (the pump) must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds (this air pressure is the fuel of the voice). The vocal folds (vocal cords) are a vibrating valve that chops up the airflow from the lungs into audible pulses that form the laryngeal sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the vocal folds to ‘fine-tune’ pitch and tone. The articulators (the parts of the vocal tract above the larynx consisting of tongue, palate, cheek, lips, etc.) articulate and filter the sound emanating from the larynx and to some degree can interact with the laryngeal airflow to strengthen it or weaken it as a sound source.

Voice (Perfume song)

"Voice" (stylized as "VOICE") is the sixteenth overall single of electropop girl group Perfume. It was released on August 11, 2010 as a CD-only version and CD+DVD version. "Voice" was used in the commercial of "Nissan no Omise de!" Campaign and "575" was used in the Light Pool phone commercial by KDDI iida.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Yasutaka Nakata, all music composed by Yasutaka Nakata.

Oricon Charts (Japan)

External links

Voice (Neal Schon album)

Voice is a 2001 solo album by Journey guitarist Neal Schon. The album features instrumental versions of popular songs. It peaked at number 15 on Billboard's Top New Age album chart in the same year. In 2002, Voice was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

Track listing

Personnel

References

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics.

Use of the term

The term grammar is often used by non-linguists with a very broad meaning. As Jeremy Butterfield puts it, "Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to." However, linguists use it in a much more specific sense. Speakers of a language have a set of internalised rules for using that language. This is grammar, and the vast majority of the information in it is acquired—at least in the case of one's native language—not by conscious study or instruction, but by observing other speakers; much of this work is done during early childhood. Learning a language later in life usually involves a greater degree of explicit instruction.

Grammar (disambiguation)

Grammar

See also