The article describes grammatical voice in Slavic: (1) informal characterization of voice; (2) definition of voice and a general inventory of specific voices; (3) voice types in Slavic; (4) Slavic derived voices; (5) discourse functions of voices; (6) historical development of voice in Slavic; (7) some voice-like phenomena in Slavic; and (8) summary of the main issues in the study of Slavic voice. Voice phenomena are considered in a dependency approach to language.

Stoicism before Chrysippus believed in radical determism, but Chrysippus reintroduced the notion of human responsibility. He argued that it is in our power to assent to an impression or otherwise and work with it, and it is likewise in our power to assent to or to reject World Fate, working with or against it. He illustrated this with his analogy with the top that needs a spin: its spinnability is its inherent cause, but needs an external cause to activate it. In this way, he further posited, we can assign good or bad morality to humans, judging by their will to live Stoically, that is, ‘in accordance with nature’, the Stoics’ highest virtue. Virgil adopts this model in the Aeneid, so that Aeneas can be seen as learning to assent to World Fate, while Juno, Dido and Turnus can ignore or reject it. Virgil in fact incorporates Chrysippus’ analogy in a simile depicting Amata driven by her inherent desire and by the daemonic goddess Allecto to deny her assent to World Fate. However, he locates deviations from World Fate within the Stoic category of ‘events in suspension’, ‘indifferents’ or individual fortunes, which might temporarily challenge World Fate but never negate it.

This chapter focuses on grammatical resources for construing experience – transitivity. It begins with a basic introduction to experiential clause structure, covering participants, processes and circumstances. It then presents the distinctive structures of material, mental, relational and verbal clauses. The meaning potential of each clause type is consolidated in a system network whose realisation in structure is specified. Following a discussion of diathesis (covering voice and causatives), a range of types of circumstance are surveyed.