Voice: voice
| Values: | Act | Bfoc | Ifoc | Lfoc | Pass |
Voice is typically a feature of verbs. It may also occur with other parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, adverbs), depending on whether borderline word forms such as gerunds and participles are classified as verbs or as the other category.
For Indo-European speakers, voice means mainly the active-passive distinction. In other languages, other shades of verb meaning are categorized as voice.
Act: active or actor-focus voice
The subject of the verb is the doer of the action (agent), the object is affected by the action (patient). This label is also used for the actor-focus voice of Austronesian languages.
Examples
- [tl] Naglilinis siya ng bahay. “He/she cleans a/the house.”
Pass: passive or patient-focus voice
The subject of the verb is affected by the action (patient). The doer (agent) is either unexpressed or it appears as an oblique dependent or an object of the verb. This label is also used for the patient-focus voice of Austronesian languages.
Examples
- [tl] Nililinis niya ang bahay. “He/she cleans the house.”
Lfoc: location-focus voice
The subject of the verb indicates location or direction, while the doer and the undergoer/theme are coded as objects.
Examples
- [tl] Aalisan ng babae ng bigas ang sako para sa bata. “A/the woman will take some rice out of the sack for a/the child.”
Bfoc: beneficiary-focus voice
The subject of the verb indicates the beneficiary, while the doer and the undergoer/theme are coded as objects.
Examples
- [tl] Ipagaalis ng babae ng bigas sa sako ang bata. “A/the woman will take some rice out of a/the sack for the child.”
Ifoc: instrument-focus voice
The subject of the verb indicates the instrument, while the doer and the undergoer/theme are coded as objects.
Examples
- [tl] Ipinansulat ni John ng liham kay Mary ang makinilya. “John wrote Mary a letter on the typewriter.”
Voice in other languages: [abq] [am] [arr] [bej] [bg] [ceb] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [fi] [fr] [gn] [gub] [hu] [hy] [jaa] [ka] [ky] [myu] [qpm] [qtd] [quc] [ru] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [xcl]