Thursday, June 7, 2007

Passive Voice in tutorial

Normal sentences in English are in active voice.

Bill kicked the ball .

In active sentences the subject of the sentence is the actor of the verb or the doer of the action. In the above sentence, the subject Bill is the actor of the verb or the one who kicked the ball. The direct object the ball is the receiver of the verb action.


In passive sentences the subject of the sentence is the receiver of the action.

The ball was kicked by Bill .

In the above sentence, the ball is the receiver of the action and is the subject of the sentence. Bill, the actor of the verb is now the object of the preposition by.

To form a passive sentence from an active sentence, we move the receiver of the action from the direct object position of the sentence to the subject position of the sentence. We insert the verb BE in agreement in number with the new subject and in the appropriate tense. We change the verb to its past participle form. The actor of the verb can be placed in the object position after the preposition by . Placing the actor of the verb in the sentence is optional and generally only done when it is important to do so.

The boys ate the pie
The pie was eaten (by the boys).


Tense

Active Voice

Passive Voice
Present The boys eat the pie. The pie is eaten by the boys
Present progressive The boys are eating the pie

The pie is being eaten by the boys
Present perfect The boys have eaten the pie The pie has been eaten by the boys
Past The boys ate the pie The pie was eaten by the boys
Past progressive The boys were eating the pie The pie was being eaten by the boys
Past perfect The boys had eaten the pie The pie had been eaten by the boys
Future The boys will eat the pie The pie will be eaten by the boys
The boys are going to eat the pie. The pie is going to be eaten by the boys
Future perfect The boys will have eaten the pie The pie will have been eaten by the boys
The passive voice can also be used with modals
Present modal The boys can eat the pie The pie can be eaten by the boys
Past modal The boys could have eaten the pie The pie could have been eaten by the boys

Uses of the passive. Why do we use passive sentences?

• 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).
The president was assassinated this morning .

• We can use the passive when we don't know who did the action.
The bank was robbed yesterday.

• We use the passive when we don't need to say who did the action.
The bill was signed into law at noon.

• We can use the passive to avoid saying who did the action.
The employees were laid off just before the holidays.


Warning!

Some verbs cannot be used in the passive form. Verbs which do not take objects, intransitive verbs, cannot be used to form passive sentences.
Some examples of common intransitive verbs.
come die go happen itch occur rain rise walk

by nasrul11.blogspot.com at 5:46 PM |