neuter voice

neuter voice (usually uncountable, plural neuter voices)

1. (grammar, uncommon) A voice which is neither active nor passive (nor middle voice); the voice assigned to a copulative verb.
   • 1785, George Travis, Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq - Author of the History of the Decline, and Fall, of the Roman Empire, page 71:

     He uſes the word UNUM, in the neuter voice; which does not belong to a ſingle peſson, but to an (u) unity of perſons.

   • 1882, Ardalīon Ivanov, A. Ivánoff's Russian Grammar (16th Ed.-145th Thousand), page 53:

     These likewise terminate in ся, and without the particle they are not used. They have the meaning of verbs of either the active or neuter voice.

   • 1898, Missouri School Journal - Volume 15, page 150:

     Such verbs really have no voice, but for convenience we may say they are in the neuter voice.

   • 1953, Dāmodaranaṇḍita, Uktivyaktiprakaraṇa, page 58:

     We have the Neuter Voice, or Passive of the Intransitive, also āchia (20/16, 20/25), jāiā (for jāiă?: 16/14), mohia (51/23); ho=bhūyate (12/29).

   • 1965, American Anthropological Association, et. al. (contributors), International Journal of American Linguistics - Volumes 7-8, page 124:

     ... the neuter voice, we have in verbs of adjectival nature the distinction of inchoative and static forms, such as "to be yellow (static, descriptive)" and "to become yellow (inchoative)"

   • 1973, Mercury Press (publisher), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 45, page 95:

     ... the laughter, a voice without gender, without inflection, a neuter voice: "I wish I may, I wish I might.

   • 1981, Maurice Blanchot, The gaze of Orpheus, and other literary essays, page 141:

     It is the narrative voice, a neuter voice that speaks the work from that place-less place in which the work is silent.

   • 1994, Jack McKinney, The Black Hole Travel Agency Book 4: Hostile Takeover, page 170:

     "I am receiving a communications signal," the aerospace truck told Sinead and the XTs, using a stiff neuter voice now that Silvercup's essence had been withdrawn from it.

   • 1998, Latviešu valodas institūta žurnals (publisher), Linguistica lettica, Volumes 3-4, page 162:

     Historically reflexive verbs expressing neuter voice consists of three members - active voice - neuter voice - passive voice.

   • 2000, Mark B. Fenton, Business Education and Training - A Value-Laden Process on the Threshold of the Millennium, page 283:

     For instance, while the Hebrew of the Old Testament has only masculine and feminine voice, the New Testament Greek has a neuter voice as well.

   • 2016, David Appelbaum, In His Voice: Maurice Blanchot's Affair with the Neuter, page 26:

     Yet no sooner is the neuter voice heard than it blends listlessly into background sound, a murmur clueless about things. The neuter voice is too reticent, too timid—too unjust—to be audible.