The Passive Voice 1

The Passive Voice: Introduction to the passive

Norma Carolina Arce Bonilla Alejandra Sara Ramos Silis Daniel Esa Orellana Funes Jonathan Adolfo Martnez Medrano

Grammar I, Semester II Elmer Jorge Guardado Gmez. BA. December 14th, 2011

The Passive Voice 2

The Passive Voice:

The Use of Passive There is a lot of confusion as to when we are to use the Passive Voice. There are many grammar books that explain the procedures and the reasons why we use the passive, but you must also consider that the counterpart of the Passive Voice is the Active Voice. This will be used in this report to show the difference between Active and passive, as well as to prove that the rules are being followed. First of all, we must understand the passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known; however, who or what is performing the action. Because of the nature of the passive voice, it is said that the statements made in passive voice can be more polite than the ones in active voice. When it comes to pointing to a mistake, it is much more polite to only mention that a mistake was made, than to specify the persons name. As mentioned in the (Learn English Grammar)Website; since its in passive voice, it is not important or not known who performs the action.

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In a very interesting book titled Understanding English Grammar, (Kolln, 1994, pg. 359) mentions that verbs are also said to be either active (The executive committee approved the new policy) or passive (The new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice. In the active voice, the subject and verb relationship is straightforward: the subject is a be-er or a do-er and the verb moves the sentence along. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er or a be-er, but is acted upon by some other Agent or by something unnamed (The new policy was approved). The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in two situations: y When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours. y When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours. The passive voice is especially helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of acid is/was poured into the beaker." The passive voice is also useful when describing, say, a mechanical process in which the details of process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately after the acid rinse."

The Passive Voice 4 We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences. The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" The paragraph is clearly about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence. The passive voice allows for this transition. (Kolln, 1994).

Making the passive voice

Subject verb object

ACTIVE: Mary helped

Subject

the boy.

verb

PASSIVE: The boy was helped by Mary

In the passive, the object of an active becomes the subject of the passive verb. Notice that the subject of an active verb follows by in a passive sentence. The noun that follows by in called the AGENT Only transitive verbs (verbs that can be followed by an object) are used in the passive. It is not possible to use intransitive verbs (such as happen, sleep, come, seem) in the passive.

ACTIVE: An accident happened.. PASSIVE: (none)

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Using the passive voice It is said in a book by (Azar, 1993), that the passive is used without a byphrase. The passive is most frequently used when it is unknown or it isnt important to know exactly who performs the action. For example: Corn is grown in Usulutn. In this example, Corn is grown by farmers, people. It can be anybody. In reality it is unknown or it isnt important to know exactly who grows corn in Usulutn. The by-phrase is included only if it is important to know who performs an action, like the case of an author of a book. For example: Huckleberry Finn was written by Mark Twain. Sometimes, even when the speaker knows who performs the action, s/he chooses to use the passive with the by-phrase because s/he wants to focus attention on the subject of the sentence. For example: This table was made by my father.

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Why we use the Passive Voice? According to (eflnet, 1999) we use the passive voice in the following situations: 1. We use the passive voice when the receiver of the action is more important in our communication than the one who did it (the actor of the verb). 2. We can use the passive when we don't know who did the action. 3. We use the passive when we don't need to say who did the action. 4. We can use the passive to avoid saying who did the action. Modal Forms Modal verbs can be used in a variety of different forms. (Dynamics) We found many examples: Modal Simple I could swim at the beach. Modal Continuous I could be swimming at the beach right now. Modal Perfect I could have swum at the beach yesterday. Modal Perfect Continuous I could have been swimming at the beach instead of working in the office. Passive Modal Simple The room should be cleaned once a day. Passive Modal Continuous The room should be being cleaned now. Passive Modal Perfect The room should have been cleaned yesterday. Passive Modal Perfect Continuous The room should have been being cleaned but nobody was there. (Rare form)

The Passive Voice 7 The Stative Passive As mentioned many time before, the Passive can be used for many situations. But when the Passive is used to describe an existing situation or state, it is called the stative passive as mentioned by (Azar, 1993, pg. 225). And adjectives are used to describe the states or situations. Of course there are somethings to take in consideration when using the stative passive. y y y No action is taking place; the action happened earlier. The past participle functions as an adjective. There is no by-phrase.

The passives described above are all eventive (or dynamic) passives. Stative (or static, or resultative) (Wikipedia, 2011)passives also exist in English; rather than describing an action, they describe the result of an action. English does not usually distinguish between the two. For example:
y

The window was broken.

This sentence has two different meanings, roughly the following:

y y

[Someone] broke the window. The window was not intact.

The former meaning represents the canonical, eventive passive; the latter, the stative passive. (The terms eventive and stative/resultative refer to the tendencies of these forms to describe events and resultant states, respectively. The terms can be misleading, however, as the canonical passive of a stative verb is not a stative passive, even though it describes a state.)

The Passive Voice 8 Some verbs do not form stative passives. (Wikipedia, 2011) In some cases, this is because distinct adjectives exist for this purpose, such as with the verb open:
y y

The door was opened. The door was open.

[Someone] opened the door. The door was in the open state.

Stative Passive Verbs plus Prepositions (Azar, 1993, pg. 228). (a) Im interested in Greek Many stative passive verbs are culture. followed by prepositions other than (b) Hes worried about losing by. his job. Common Stative Passive Verbs + Prepositions be accustomed to be engaged to be opposed to be acquainted with be equipped with be addicted to be excited about be pleased with be annoyed with,by be exhausted from be prepared for be associated with be exposed to be protected from be provided with be bored with,by be filled with be finished with be qualified for be cluttered with be frightened of,by be composed of be related to be concerned about be gone from be remembered for be connected to be coordinated with be interested in be satisfied with be covered with be involved in be scared of,by be crowded with be tired of,from be known for be dedicated to be worried about be devoted to be limited to de disappointed in, with be located in be discriminated against be divorced from be made of be done with be married to be dressed in

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In (Tien, 2007), it is also mentioned that Stative passives are verb-like words that follow be in sentences and function as adjectives. And (ESLGold.com, 2005)mentions that Stative passives indicate a status or condition which may exist over a period of time. In contrast, action verbs often indicate a change from one status to another. So we realize that there are many authors (Azar, 1993) (Greenbaum R. Q., 1993) (Kolln, 1994) who have tried to explain the passive, in their own word. But the truth is that they all keep the original idea of the uses and the structures that the passive voice involves. We have studied and learned through these authors and through the information found in the World Wide Web (Dynamics) (Wikipedia, 2011) (eflnet, 1999), and find it very interesting. The many ways that authors and writers can define these uses and rules and still not lose the basic idea of what the passive voice is about and how it is to function in the English language. Once we dig in further into the investigation, we can notice how these rules are followed sometimes without even knowing that we are following them. But this is done after many years of practice of the passive voice. And we are very sure that many years from now, these same rules will still be valid and used in this beautiful language.

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References

Azar, B. S. (1993). English Grammar (Third Edition ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Dynamics, L. (s.f.). English Page. Recuperado el 9 de diciembre de 2011, de http://www.englishpage.com/modals/modalforms.html eflnet. (10 de Diciembre de 1999). www.eflnet.com. Recuperado el Diceimbre de 2011, de http://www.eflnet.com/tutorials/passivevoice.php ESLGold.com. (2005). Recuperado el 10 de december de 2011, de http://www.eslgold.com/grammar/stative_passives.html Greenbaum, R. Q. (1993). Greenbaum, R. Q. (1993). A University Grammar of English. England: Longman Group Essex. Kolln, M. (1994). Understanding English Grammar (4th Edition ed.). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company. Learn English Grammar. (s.f.). Tien, N. N. (2007). Free English Study. Recuperado el 11 de december de 2011, de http://free-english-study.com/grammar/stative-passives.html Wikipedia. (7 de December de 2011). Wikipedia. Recuperado el 11 de December de 2011, de http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice#Stative_passives