domingo, 13 de mayo de 2012

NOTES ON THE PASSIVE VOICE

Passive voice


Use of Passive
Passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known, who or what is performing the action.
Example: My bike was stolen.
Who stole it?
Form of Passive
Subject + verb to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs / verb ending -ed)
Example: A letter was written (irregular)
A football game is being played (regular)
Active to Passive
When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following steps:
1st step: the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence
2nd step: verb to be takes the tense of the verb in the active sentence.
3rd step: write the past participle of the verb in the active sentence.
4th step: the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped) introduced by _____



Active
Passive
1st step
Object
Subject
2nd step
Verb tense =
Tense of the verb to be
3rd step
Verb =
Past participle
4th step
subject
by …
Example: Tom has made a cake (active)
A cake has been made by Tom (Passive)
Passive Sentences with Two Objects
Rewriting an active sentence with two objects in passive voice means that one of the two objects becomes the subject, the other one remains an object.
Subject
Verb
Object 1
Object 2
Active:
Rita
wrote
a letter
to me.
Passive:
A letter
was written
to me
by Rita.
Passive:
I
was written
a letter
by Rita.

IMPERSONAL AND PERSONAL PASSIVE
Sometimes when you are reporting what people say or believe, you don´t know, or you don´t want to say, who exactly the `people´ are. So you use an impersonal construction:
People believe that thousands of birds died.
The same idea can be expressed by using the passive in two different ways:
a) subject + passive of reporting verb + `to´ infinitive (PERSONAL PASSIVE)
Hundreds of thousands of birds are believed to have died.
b) It + passive of reporting verb + that + clause (IMPERSONAL PASSIVE)
It is believed that hundreds of thousands of birds died.

VERB CHANGES IN PERSONAL PASSIVE
PRESENT / SIMPLE FUTURE: live / will live __ to live (to infinitive)
PRESENT CONTINUOUS: is living __ to be living (to be + V-ing)
PRESENT PERFECT: have lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST SIMPLE / PAST PERFECT: lived __ to have lived / had lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST CONTINUOUS:  was living __ to have been living (to have been + V-ing)

THE CAUSATIVE FORM: have/get + object +past participle
Instead of a passive sentence, we sometimes use the causative form when you get somebody else to do something for you.
     
  • She's having her house redecorated.
  • I had a copy of the report sent to you
In informal English, we can replace 'have' by 'get'.
  • They will be getting the system repaired.
  • I got the bill sent direct to the company.

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