THE PASSIVE VOICE

THE PASSIVE VOICE

Compare the two sentences:

                        Your little boy broke my kitchen window this morning.

                        That window was broken by your little boy.

            The first kind of sentence is called "active". The second kind of sentence is called "passive".

            Passive structures are used when we want to talk about an action, but we are not interested in saying who or what did it.

                        Those pyramids were built around 400 A.D.

                        Too many books have been written about the second world war.

            Passives are very common in scientific writing, and other kinds of expression where we are most interested in events and processes: in things that happen.

           

           

            PASSIVE VERB-FORMS

                        Passive verb-forms are made with:

                                   TO BE + PAST PARTICIPLE

Present simple:                       English is spoken here.

Present continuous:                The house is being painted.

Past simple:                            I wasn't invited, but I've come anyway.

Past continuous:                     I felt as if I was being watched.

Present perfect:                      Has Mary been told?

Past perfect:                           I knew why I had been chosen.

Future:                                               You'll be told in advance.

Future perfect:                       Everything will have been done by the 26th

Going to:                                            Who's going to be invited?

Modal structures:                   The house should be cleaned.  

                                               You might have been hurt.

                                                          

            PASSIVE: by + agent.

In sentences like:

            The trouble was caused by your mother

            the part of the sentence introduced by by is called the agent.

The agent is only expressed when it is important to say who or what something is done by. In most passive sentences, there is no agent.

            A new supermarket's just been opened.

            I'm always being asked for money.

            With is used when we talk about an instrument (tool, etc.) which helps the agent to do an action.

            He was shot (by a policeman) with a revolver.

            PASSIVE: verbs with two objects.

            Many verbs, such as give, send, show, lend, explain, invite,                                                            ask, tell, teach, pay, promise, offer.

can be followed by two objects, which usually refer to a person and a thing.

                        She gave her sister a book.

            When these verbs are used in the passive, there are two possibilities.

                        Her sister was given a book.

                        A book was given to her sister.

            Most often in such cases the person becomes the subject of the passive verb.

                        I've been sent a lot of information.

                        You were lent  ten thousand pounds last year.

                        We were shown all the different ways of making whisky.