LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION 1 - TENSESVOICE: ACTIVE AND PASSIVE

Prepared by: Deenadevy Jessica Debbie

Voice = relationship between the subject and the action expressed by the verb
Does the subject act? active voice Is the subject acted upon? passive voice

Active Voice
The active voice is the "normal" voice. This is the voice that we use most of the time. You are probably already familiar with the active voice.

In the active voice, the object receives the action of the verb.
When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence Cats eat fish. Cats (the subject of the sentence) acts in relation to the fish.
Subject Verb Object

Active
Cats eat

>
fish.

Passive Voice

The passive voice is less usual. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb. For example, in Fish was eaten by cats, the fish (the subject) receives the action of the verb, and was eaten is in the passive voice. The same sentence cast in the active voice would be, Cats eat fish.
Passive Subject Verb < Fish are eaten Object by cats.

The object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb:
Active Passive Subject Everybody Water Verb drinks is drunk Object water. by everybody.

Construction of the Passive Voice

The structure of the passive voice is very simple: subject + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (past participle) The main verb is always in its past participle form.

Look at these examples:

subject auxiliary verb (to be) is are am are they main verb (past participle) drunk employed paid not paid paid by everyone. by this company. in euro. in dollars. in yen?

Water 100 people I We Are

Use of the Passive Voice

We use the passive when: we want to make the active object more important we do not know the active subject

subject give President importance to Kennedy active object (President Kennedy)

verb was killed

object by Lee Harvey Oswald.

active subject My wallet unknown

has been stolen.

* Note that we always use by to introduce the passive object (Fish are eaten by cats).

Look at this sentence:

He was killed with a gun. Normally we use by to introduce the passive object. But the gun is not the active subject. The gun did not kill him. He was killed by somebody with a gun. In the active voice, it would be: Somebody killed him with a gun. The gun is the instrument. Somebody is the "agent" or "doer".

Conjugation for the Passive Voice

We can form the passive in any tense. In fact, conjugation of verbs in the passive tense is rather easy, as the main verb is always in past participle form and the auxiliary verb is always be. To form the required tense, we conjugate the auxiliary verb. So, for example:

present simple: It is made present continuous: It is being made present perfect: It has been made

Here are some examples with most of the possible tenses:

infinitive simple
present past future conditional present past future conditional present past future conditional present past future conditional

continuous

perfect simple

perfect continuous

to be washed It is washed. It was washed. It will be washed. It would be washed. It is being washed. It was being washed. It will be being washed. It would be being washed. It has been washed. It had been washed. It will have been washed. It would have been washed. It has been being washed. It had been being washed. It will have been being washed. It would have been being washed.

Tense and voice together

Transitive verbs have both tense and voice.
In

active voice, the past participle identifies past tense.

I

completed the project.

In

passive voice, the to be verb identifies tense.

The

project will be completed. The project was completed yesterday.

Summary: Tense and Voice

Tense = Time
Verb

tense places an action in the past, present, or future

Voice = relationship of the subject to the action in the verb

active

voice: subject performs the action passive voice: subject receives the action