Characteristics of the paradigm of the category of voice in the Old Saxon language

Abstract

The article attempts to characterize the paradigm of the category of the voice of the Old Saxon language, based on the texts of the ancient saxon poem “The Savior” (“Heliand”). The author states that the category of the voice of the Old Saxon language was represented by pre-categorical inverse constructions with reflexive, reciprocal and inverse shades and participle passive constructions, namely copulative structures “to be / become” + II participle and non-copulative participle structures that broadcast different types of voice relations. It is proved that the active voice of the Old Saxon language was represented by the indicative (real voice), with the subject that was an active performer of the action. In particular, the active voice structures could be factual (agential). As in other Old Germanic languages, in the Old Saxon language the active voice expresses the reality of action, events, their prediction and shades of command. In particular, it is determined in the article that as an opposition of active voice were grammatical constructions that had shades of reversion (inverse, reciprocal, inverse), the so-called “branching” in shades of voice values: the actual inverse constructions, mutually reverse, indirectly reverse, ingressive, active-nonobjective. Shades of passivity were formed predominantly on the basis of pre-categorical constructions with the verbs “to be” / “to become” + participle II. In particular, in the corps of the ancient Saxon “Savior” there were a large number of non-copulative (free) structures with participle II, which could express passive or partiallypassive value. The author also notes that in addition to the typological distribution of the category of voice in the context of the opposition, “active-passive-reflexive”, in the Old Saxon paradigm of the category of voice there were observed subjective-objective relations, which in their turn had varieties: transformative, creative, addressive, factual, perceptual, emotional, instrumental.