The passive
voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (such as Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was defeated by our troops).
The
subject of a sentence or clause featuring the passive voice denotes the
recipient of the action (the patient) rather
than the performer (the agent).
The passive voice in English is formed periphrastically: the usual form uses
the auxiliary verb be (or get)
together with the past participle of the main verb.
For
example, Caesar was stabbed by
Brutus uses the passive
voice. The subject denotes the person (Caesar) affected by the action of the
verb. The agent is expressed here with the phrase by Brutus, but this can be
omitted. The equivalent sentence in active
voice is Brutus stabbed Caesar, in which
the subject denotes the doer, or agent, Brutus. A sentence featuring the
passive voice is sometimes called a passive
sentence, and a verb phrase in passive voice is sometimes called a passive verb.
English
allows a number of passive constructions which are not possible in many of the
other languages with similar passive formation. These include promotion of an indirect object to subject (as in Tom was given a bag) and
promotion of the complement of a preposition (as in Sue was operated on, leaving a stranded preposition).
Use
of the English passive varies with writing style and field. Some publications'
style sheets discourage use of the passive voice, while others encourage it. Although some purveyors of usage
advice, including George Orwell (see Politics
and the English Language, 1946) and William
Struck, Jr. and E. B. White (see The
Element of Style, 1919), discourage the English passive, its usefulness is
generally recognized, particularly in cases where the patient is more important
than the agent,[5] but
also in some cases where it is desired to emphasize the agent.
Indetifying
the English Passive
The passive voice is a
specific grammatical construction; not every expression that serves to take
focus away from the performer of an action is classified as an instance of
passive voice. The essential components of the English passive voice are a form
of the auxiliary verb be (or sometimes get),
and the past participle of the main verb denoting the action. For
example:
... that all men are created equal...
We have been cruelly deceived.
The captain was struck by a
missile.
I got kicked in the face during
the fight.
(For exceptions, see Additional passive
construction below.) The agent (the doer of the action) may be
specified, using a prepositional phrase with the preposition by,
as in the third example, but it is equally possible to omit this, as is done in
the other examples.
A distinction is made
between the above type of clause, and those of similar form in which the past
participle is used as an ordinary adjective, and the verb be or
similar is simply acopula linking the subject of the sentence to that
adjective. For example:
I am excited (right now).
This would not normally be classed as a passive sentence, since
the participle excited is used adjectivally to denote a state,
not to denote an action of excitation (as it would in the passive the
electron was excited with a laser pulse). See Stative and adjectival
uses below.
Sentences which do not
follow the pattern described above are not considered to be in the passive
voice, even if they have a similar function of avoiding or marginalizing
reference to the agent. An example is the sentence A stabbing occurred,
where mention of the stabber is avoided, but the sentence is nonetheless cast
in the active voice, with the verbal noun stabbing forming the
subject of the simple past tense of the verb occur. (Similarly There
was a stabbing.) Occasionally, however, writers misapply the term
"passive voice" to sentences of this type. An example of this
loose usage can be found in the following extract from an article from The
New Yorker about Bernard Madoff (bolding and italics added;
bold text indicates the verbs misidentified as passive voice):
Two sentences later, Madoff said, "When I
began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly, and I
would be able to extricate myself, and my clients, from the scheme." As he
read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to use the passive
voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad weather
that had descended on him . . . In most of the rest of the statement, one not
only heard the aggrieved passive voice, but felt the hand of a
lawyer: "To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in
the early nineteen-nineties."
The intransitive verbs would end and began are
in fact in the active voice. Although the speaker uses the words in a manner
that subtly diverts responsibility from him, this is not accomplished by use of
passive voice.
Examples of misuse of
the term are also found in Strunk and White's influential The element
of Style. Professor Geoffrey Pullum notes that three out of four
"passive voice" examples given in that book do not in fact contain
passives: "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the
ground" (no sign of any passive); "It was not long before she was very
sorry that she had said what she had" (again, no sign of the passive);
"The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired"
(here became impaired is an example of the adjectival, not
passive, use of the past participle).
Use of Passive
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.
Example: My bike was stolen.
In the example above, the focus is on the fact that my bike was
stolen. I do not know, however, who did it.
Sometimes a statement in passive is more polite than active voice,
as the following example shows:
Example: A mistake was made.
In this case, I focus on the fact that a mistake was made, but I
do not blame anyone (e.g. You have made a mistake.).
Form of Passive
Subject + finite form of to be + Past Participle
(3rd column of irregular
verbs)
Example: A letter was written.
When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following:
§ the object of the active
sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence
§ the finite form of the
verb is changed (to be + past participle)
§ the subject of the
active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped)
Examples of Passive
|
Tense
|
Subject
|
Verb
|
Object
|
|
|
Simple Present
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
writes
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
is written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Simple Past
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
wrote
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
was written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Present Perfect
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
has written
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
has been written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Future I
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
will write
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
will be written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Hilfsverben
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
can write
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
can be written
|
by Rita.
|
|
‘
|
Tense
|
Subject
|
Verb
|
Object
|
|
|
Present Progressive
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
is writing
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
is being written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Past Progressive
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
was writing
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
was being written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Past Perfect
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
had written
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
had been written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Future II
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
will have written
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
will have been written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Conditional I
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
would write
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
would be written
|
by Rita.
|
|
|
Conditional II
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
would have written
|
a letter.
|
|
Passive:
|
A letter
|
would have been written
|
by Rita.
|
|
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. Which object to transform into a subject depends on what you want to
put the focus on.
|
|
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.
|
PRESENT
1. Simple Present Tense
S + IS/AM/ARE + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
am called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
is bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house is sold by the owner.
2. Present Continuous Tense
S + AM/IS/ARE + BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
am being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
is being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house is being sold by the owner.
3. Present Perfect Tense
S + HAVE/HAS + BEEN + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
have been called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
has been bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house has been sold by the owner.
4. Present Perfect Continuous Tense
S + HAS/HAVE + BEEN + BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
have been being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
has been being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house has been being sold by the owner.
PAST
1. Simple Past Tense
S + WAS/WERE + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
We
were called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
was bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house was sold by the owner.
2. Past Continuous Tense
S + WAS/WERE + BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
We
were being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
was being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house was being sold by the owner.
3. Past Perfect Tense
S + HAD + BEEN + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
had been called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
had been bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house had been sold by the owner.
4. Past Perfect Continuous Tense
S + HAD + BEEN + BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
had been being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
had been being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house had been being sold by the owner.
FUTURE
1. Simple Future Tense
S + WILL + BE + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
will be called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
will be bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house will be sold by the owner.
2. Future Continuous Tense
S + WILL + BE + BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
will be being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
will be being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house will be being sold by the owner.
3. Future Perfect Tense
S + WILL + HAVE + BEEN + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
will have been called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
will have been bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house will have been sold by the owner.
4. Future Perfect Continuous Tense
S + WILL + HAVE + BEEN +BEING + V 3
Contohnya:
1.
I
will have been being called by the teacher
2.
Mimy
will have been being bitten by a little dog
3.
The
house will have been being sold by the owner.
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