The passive - Advanced English Grammar for ESL Learners - PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: Advanced English Grammar for ESL Learners (2011)

10 The passive

This chapter examines (1) how the be passive is formed, (2) the reasons for deleting the agent, and (3) the get passive.

How the be passive is formed

The passive is certainly the most complicated of all verb constructions in English. Chapter 5, “Verb forms and tenses,” gives the basic rule that governs the formation of all the complex tense constructions in English. Complex constructions consist of two components: a specific helping verb followed by specific verb-tense form. The passive is no exception. In its most common form, the passive consists of these two components: some form of the helping verb be + a verb in the past participle form.

The story was read by the whole class.
be + past participle
Lunch will be provided.
be+ past participle
The money had been kept in a locked safe.
be + past participle
The children are being watched by a neighbor.
be + past participle

Note that in the last example above there are two uses of the verb be: the first is for the progressive, the second is for the passive.

The signature of the passive is be (in some form) + a past participle. Any other use of be or of past participles does not constitute the passive. For example, the following sentence uses be as a helping verb, but it is not a passive because the be verb is not followed by a past participle:

They were eating dinner when we got there.

The following sentence contains a past participle, but it is not a passive because the helping verb is not some form of be:

They had already eaten dinner when we got there.

EXERCISE 10.1

The following sentences contain a number of verb constructions in bold. If the verb construction is passive, write “passive” above the verb. If it is not passive, explain what element is missing. The first question is done as an example.

The players had finally united as a solid team.

be as a helping verb is missing

1. The kids were busy helping the neighbors pick tomatoes.

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2. The initial proposal had originally been met with a lot of resistance.

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3. The ghost of the lost hunter has never appeared again.

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4. The presentation will be continued after lunch.

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5. They have apparently learned nothing from their experience.

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6. The dogs should have been taken to the vet this afternoon.

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7. We are making them a very attractive offer.

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8. Some of the paperwork must have been lost along the way.

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9. Many students are carrying far too many credits.

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10. His story will never be believed.

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Passives are unique in that they are actually derived from another construction. Thus there is a special paraphrase relationship between every passive sentence and its active counterpart. Sentences that are in the passive are said to be in the passive voice. Sentences that are not passive are said to be in the active voice (a term that is rarely used except in discussing the passive). Every passive sentence has been derived from a corresponding active sentence by a special set of rules. Here is an example:

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There are three changes from the active sentence to its passive paraphrase, which we can imagine taking place in the following three-step process:

1. The original subject of the active sentence (Anne) is turned into the object of a by prepositional phrase and moved to the end of the sentence.

2. The original object of the active sentence (the final report of the committee) moves forward to fill the now empty subject slot.

3. The helping verb be is inserted in front of the main verb in whatever tense the original main verb was in, and the main verb is changed into a past participle. In this example, the verb be is used in the past tense was and the main verb is used in the past participle form written.

The tense of the active sentence is always retained in the passive paraphrase. If the active is in the present tense, the passive must also be in the present tense. If the active is in the past tense, the passive must also be in the past tense. For example, in the following example, the tense of the original active sentence is kept in the passive paraphrase:

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The passive verb must agree with the new subject, not the original one. For example, if the above example had the original object in the plural, the passive would change to plural to agree with the new subject:

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If the active sentence has one or more helping verbs, the be of the passive is inserted right in front of the main verb (always the right-most verb). The form of the inserted be always takes on the tense form of the original main verb. (The main verb, of course, has to change to the past participle form.)

Here are some more examples of this process.

The active contains a modal verb:

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The active contains a perfect tense:

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The active contains a progressive tense:

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EXERCISE 10.2

Change the following active sentences into their passive equivalents. Label all the verb forms in the passive sentences. The first question has been done as an example.

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How does the passive paraphrase differ from the original active form? There is no real difference in meaning: the new passive sentence still means the same thing as the original active sentence. What has changed is the focus. The passive paraphrase shift s the focus of attention away from the doer of the action (the original subject) to what was done (the original object). For example, let’s look again at our original example of active and passive sentences:

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The active sentence focuses on what Anne did. The passive sentence focuses on the final report of the committee. One problem in talking about the meaning of active and passive sentences is that the term subject is confusing. Anne is the grammatical subject of the active sentence but not of the passive sentence. The grammatical subject of the passive sentence is the noun phrase the final report of the committee even though Anne is still the semantic subject of the sentence, that is, the doer of the action.

Reasons for deleting the agent

We need to introduce a term that may be new to you: agent. The agent always plays the role of doer of the action of the sentence. In an active sentence, the grammatical subject is also the agent. But in a passive sentence, the grammatical subject is not the agent.

Since the whole point of using the passive is to shift focus away from the agent and focus instead on what was done, why do we even want to keep the agent in the passive sentence? The answer is that most of the time we do not keep the agent. Studies of written English have shown that the agent is deleted from passive sentences about 85 percent of the time.

The main reason the agent is deleted is that the agent is usually one of the following: (1) unknown or unknowable, (2) an impersonal entity or institution, (3) universal or highly generalized, or (4) embarrassing or awkward to reveal. Here are some examples:

1. unknown or unknowable agent:

My bike was stolen last night.
Most diamonds are mined in Africa.

2. impersonal entity or institution:

Our flight was just canceled.
She was promoted to regional manager recently.

3. universal or highly generalized agent:

World War I has been largely forgotten.
Mass transit should be more widely used.

4. agent withheld because embarrassing or awkward:

Mistakes were made.
We were given some bad advice.

EXERCISE 10.3

All of the following sentences are passives whose agents have been deleted. Select which of the following four options best characterizes the reason for dropping the agent: (1) unknown or unknowable agent, (2) impersonal entity or institution, (3) universal or highly generalized agent, or (4) agent withheld because embarrassing or awkward. The first question is done as an example.

Passives should be avoided.

(3) universal or highly generalized agent

1. New guidelines have been issued.

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2. My new cell phone was made in China.

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3. Your son has been sent to the principal’s office.

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4. The word judgment is often misspelled.

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5. The walls had been covered in graffiti.

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6. We were always told not to talk to strangers.

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7. I’m sorry, but your credit card application has been rejected.

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8. Thrift is more often praised than practiced.

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9. The airport has been closed.

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10. The movie was filmed on location in Paris.

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One of the most common pieces of advice given to professional or technical writers is to avoid the passive unless there is a compelling reason to use it. Often the passive, especially in any kind of formal writing, is overused, making the writing pompous and life-less—like the worst kind of bureaucratic writing. Good writers use the passive form of a sentence when there is a reason for it. A common reason for using the passive is to focus on and expand the object portion of the underlying active sentence rather than the agent. For example, see how Thomas Jefferson used the passive in the following excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents in American history:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

Jefferson could have used the active rather than the passive:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the Creator created all men equal, that He endowed them with certain unalienable Rights.

Clearly, Jefferson wanted all men to be the focus of the sentence rather than the agent the Creator. He thus shifted the sentence into its passive form.

A good writing practice is to test a passive against its active form to see which one works best. Unless there is a good reason to prefer the passive, we should consider rephrasing the sentence in its active form. To do this, we need to be able to consciously convert a passive to its active form. Here is an example:

Passive The proposal was rejected by a slim majority.

Whether the active or passive is more appropriate depends entirely on the context and what the writer’s intentions are. But consciously looking at both forms ensures that we will not use an inappropriate passive just because we did not consider the alternative active form.

Creating the active form is a two-step process:

1. Switch the two noun phrases: move the agent into the subject position and move the subject of the passive to an object position (deleting the preposition by).

2. Change the form of the main verb to whatever tense the helping verb be is in and then delete the be.

Here is how we might convert the passive example above into its underlying active structure:

Passive The proposal was rejected by a slim majority.

1. Switch noun phrases and delete by:

The proposal was rejected by a slim majority. ⇒
A slim majority was rejected the proposal

2. Change the main verb to the same tense as be and then delete be:

A slim majority was rejected the proposal ⇒
A slim majority rejected the proposal

Here is a second example with a more complicated verb:

Passive The boat might have been stranded by the low tide.

1. Switch noun phrases and delete by:

The boat might have been stranded by the low tide.⇒
The low tide might have been stranded the boat.

2. Change the main verb to the same tense as be and then delete be:

The low tide might have been stranded the boat.⇒
The low tide might have stranded the boat.

Note that none of the verbs in front of the passive helping verb be is affected by the change to the active.

EXERCISE 10.4

Convert the following passive sentences to their active form. The first question is done as an example.

Our lost kitten was soon returned by some neighbors.

Some neighbors soon returned our lost kitten.

1. Several alternative treatments were offered by the doctor.

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2. The tomatoes had been grown in our garden by the children.

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3. The oath of office was being administered by the Chief Justice.

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4. A valuable lesson had been learned by everyone.

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5. The police should have been alerted by the people in the neighborhood.

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6. The tumor was first identifi ed by an MRI scan.

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7. The company was being bought out by a large corporation.

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8. The accident would have been covered by the local paper.

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9. Fortunately, the crew was rescued by the Coast Guard.

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10. The door had been forced open by someone during the night.

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Get passives

There is a second form of passive voice that uses get rather than be as the passive helping verb. The basic rule for the passive that the helping verb must be followed by a past participle still holds. Here are some examples with both the get passive and the be passive:

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Even though get is used as a passive helping verb, get cannot be used to form questions and negatives in the same way that be can. For example:

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The difference between the be passive and the get passive is that be is a helping verb that can form questions and negatives without any additional verb. However, get is not a helping verb so it requires the addition of the helping verb be to form questions and negatives.

While the get and be passives are interchangeable in some cases, there are many cases in which they cannot be interchanged. The biggest difference is in degree of formality. Get passives are primarily used in casual, spoken language and are rarely used in formal writing. For example, it would be unimaginable to find this in a book or article:

X Abraham Lincoln got assassinated in 1865.

Instead, we would find the be passive:

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

Get passives have idiosyncratic uses and restrictions, probably a result of their highly colloquial, even slangy nature. For example, a study of get passives found that 95 percent of the time, the passive was used without the agent by phrase.

Get passives are most likely to be used with dynamic verbs, verbs that have a strong sense of action or decisive activity. For example:

He got injured playing football.
I got caught in a traffic jam on the way to work.
She got assigned to a new project.

Get passives are not used much with nondynamic verbs, verbs that do not express action. If they are used with nondynamic verbs, the resulting passives are often ungrammatical. For example:

X John hasn’t gotten seen for weeks.
X The accident got photographed right after it happened.
X The noise got heard everywhere in the building.

The same sentences are completely grammatical if the be passive is used instead of the get passive:

John wasn’t seen for weeks.
The accident was photographed right after it happened.
The noise was heard everywhere in the building.

EXERCISE 10.5

Each of the following sentences contains a be passive in bold. Replace the be passive with the corresponding get passive UNLESS the get passive is used with a nondynamic verb. In that case, write “ungrammatical.” The first two questions are done as examples.

We all were badly bitten by mosquitoes.

We all got badly bitten by mosquitoes.

The party was enjoyed by everyone.

ungrammatical

1. I was selected to give the introduction.

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2. Last year’s mistakes were avoided this year.

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3. All of us were sunburned on our camping trip.

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4. They were pulled out of the ditch by a tow truck.

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5. They were permitted to park on the lawn this year.

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6. Were all of the items sold?

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7. Their efforts were greatly appreciated.

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8. Wasn’t their e-mail answered?

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9. Was she hurt in the accident?

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10. The queen was not amused.

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