Semantic functions and transitivity of middle voice in English and Arabic languages: a comparative study

Abstract

Abstract The current study seeks to provide a thorough analysis of the middle voice construction in English and Modern Standard Arabic. The analysis focuses on the semantic functions of the middle voice, the types of verbs that appear in this voice, and the transitivity of these verbs in both languages. The data of the study were collected from English corpora, the fundamental books in Arabic syntax and morphology, in addition to the intuitions of Arabic and English – speaking linguists. The analysis revealed that the middle voice exists in English as a distinct grammatical voice, but it does not in Arabic. Therefore, it is defined as an active voice with a passive meaning in Arabic. Therefore, the middle voice in English conveys many more semantic functions than those in Arabic. In contrast to the previous studies, this study argued that the middle voice is defined based on both the semantic and syntactic properties. That is, in MSA, middle-voice verbs are restricted to intransitive and unaccusative verbs, whereas in English, middle-voice verbs include intransitive, unaccusative, and unergative-reflexive-like verbs. Regarding transitivity, the findings showed that the transitive forms of the middle verbs are derived using the lexical causative pairs in English, but are derived morphologically in Arabic.