TOPIC 27

THE PASSIVE VOICE: FORM AND FUNCTIONS

OUTLINE

1. Introduction
2. Key issues
2.1. The verbal feature of voice: active vs. passive
2.2. Major verb classes: lexical vs. auxiliary verbs
3. Forms of the passive
4. Functions of the passive
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
2. KEY ISSUES
2.1. The verbal feature of voice: active vs passive

The action of a sentence can be viewed in two ways depending on the voice we use. In
English there are two voices, the active and the passive. However, this distinction is only
applied to sentences whose verb is transitive. In fact, in the active sentence the action is
carried out by the doer of the action (the ‘who’) and the object (the ‘what’) is presented
after the verb in final position (They spread the news really fast) whereas in passive
sentences we are not interested in saying ‘who’ or ‘what’ did the action but ‘what’
happened (The news were spread really fast).

The speaker’s attitude is also relevant to establish the choice for active vs. passive voice,
for instance, we usually use the passive voice to convey impersonality, specific writing
(scientific, academic, political), formal vs. informal language, newspaper, national
language etc, rather than for everyday speech. However, we do not always find a double
choice between active and passive voice since there are verbs which do not allow for it.
Therefore, the main difference between the active voice and the passive voice namely
involves both the verb phrase and the clause as a whole (i.e. He will read a magazine vs.
a magazine will be read by him).

2.2. Major verb classes: lexical vs. auxiliary verbs.

We may distinguish two major types of verb classes according to their function within
the verb phrase:

1. Lexical verbs
2. Auxiliary verbs, which are also classified into
a. primary auxiliaries
b. modal auxiliaries.

This distinction in verb class categories is relevant for our study since the reference to
the passive voice is mainly drawn from both of them. First of all, lexical verbs constitute
the principal part of the verb phrase (i.e. come, believe, think, go, speak, sing, etc) which
may be accompanied by auxiliaries (i.e. Sarah may come next week / Sarah may be
coming next week), but they can also occur in active verb phrases that do not contain
any other verbal forms (i.e. Sarah came last week).

Secondly, as a rule an auxiliary verb cannot stand on its own since it must be followed by
a lexical verb except in cases where the lexical verb (sometimes with other sentence
constituents) is understood, as in ‘Can Anthony come? Yes, he can (come).

3. FORMS OF THE PASSIVE

In English there are several types of passive constructions among which the genuine
passive is formed by ‘be’ + past participle. Yet, we may find similar constructions where
the grammatical category of verbs does not belong to the auxiliary class but to lexical
verbs, such as ‘get’, ‘become’, ‘taste’, and so on. They may be combined not only with
past participles but also with adjectives and intensifiers in order to get a semantically
different type of passive voice, giving the new structures new meanings (i.e. He got
dressed very quickly=reflexive/He was really interested in the film=a mental state).

1. The genuine passive

The ‘be’ passive voice is namely formed by putting the primary auxiliary verb ‘be’ into
the same tense as the active verb and adding the past participle of the active verb. Hence
we may find different active tenses and their passive equivalents:

 Simple present (keeps vs. is kept)

 Present continuous (is keeping vs. is being kept)
 Simple past (kept vs. was kept)
 Past continuous (was keeping vs. was being kept)
 Present perfect (had kept vs. has been kept)
 Past perfect (had kept vs. had been kept)
 Future (will keep vs. will be kept)
 Conditional (would keep vs. would be kept)
 Perfect conditional (would have kept vs. would have been kept),
 Present infinitive (to keep vs. to be kept)
  Perfect infinitive (to have kept vs. to have been kept)
 Present participle/gerund (keeping vs. being kept)
 Perfect participle (having kept vs. having been kept).

2. ‘Get’ and ‘become’ + past participle:

The construction ‘get + past participle’ is known as ‘reflexive passive’ since it describes
actions perfomed by ourselves (I got lost) or ‘perfective passive’ which means that the
action is already done (My brother got beaten by a gang); this construction is usually
limited to sentences which have no expressed animate agent (i.e. She got her car
repaired) and express the obtaining of that state or new situation in terms of ‘an action
already done’ (i.e. Many people got involved in the accident).

This type of passive is not used in formal style whereas the ‘be’ passive is, and in
informal English it is even less frequent than the ‘be’ passive. However, the use of this
perfective passive is also restricted and not all passive sentences can be constructed
with this syntactic structure. Two main uses are to be highlighted: first, when we refer to
things that are done unexpectedly, suddenly or by accident (i.e. He got caught smoking)
or when we refer to things which we do ‘ourselves’ with a reflexive rather than passive
meaning (i.e. I got lost in the middle of the night).

The construction ‘become + past participle’ which is defined as the ‘durative passive’
denotes ‘duration’ rather than ‘finished actions’ as the previous passive since it refers to
actions in progress from one state to another state (physical or mental) (The news
became known to us just one day before we got married). It is also used in informal style
and is also less frequent than the ‘be’ passive.

3. ‘Be’ (lexical verb) + a past participle which functions as an

adjective

(i.e. He is worried about the environment). Semantically, they are defined as

‘quasipassives’ since it is possible to change the past participle for an adjective which is
linked to a preposition (You are responsible for this meeting) or include an intensifier
before the past participle (He was really worried about you).
 4. Specific syntactic structures

Formed by nonfinite forms such as infinitive combinations (which are to be included

within the non-agentive passive by Quirk et al). This special type of passive is referred to
as the ‘passive infinitive’ since it implies impersonal or general comments on something
or someone (It has been said that Prince Charles is gay), and it is namely realized by the
following combinations:

 Modal auxiliary verb + infinitive. This combination is made passive by using a

passive infinitive (You should tell him vs. You should have told him/He should have
been told).
 Verbs of liking/want ing/wishing + infinitive. They are syntactically arranged
as follows: verb + direct/indirect object + infinitive (i.e. He wants someone to
take the photograph vs. He wants photographs to be taken). Cognition verbs in
passive form (say, believe, claim, consider, know, etc) + infinitive usually offer
two possible passive forms (It is considered that he is … vs. He is considered to be
…)
 After ‘suppose’. This verb in the passive can be followed by the present infinitive
of any verb but this construction usually conveys an idea of duty and is not
therefore the normal equivalent of ‘suppose’ in the active (i.e. You are supposed
to be in Paris vs. He ought to be there). The continuous infinitive can be used
after the passive of certain cognition verbs (i.e. believe, know, report, say,
suppose, think, etc) (i.e. He is believed to be living abroad).
 Gerund combinations are also used to express impersonality or general
comments with certain verbs (i.e. advise, insist, propose, recommend, suggest,
etc). These verbs are realized in the active form by the combination: verb +
gerund + object (i.e. He suggested using a knife) whereas in the passive form they
are usually expressed by ‘that + subject + should’ (i.e. He suggested that a knife
should be used).

4. FUNCTIONS
 4.1. Main syntactic changes from active to passive voice

In the verb phrase, the passive follows the structure auxiliary ‘be’ + the –ed participle of
the main verb At a clause level, changing from active to passive has the following results:

 The active subject becomes the passive agent;

 The active object becomes the passive subject;
 The preposition ‘by’ is to be placed before the agent (Picasso painted the Guernica
 The Guernica was painted by Picasso).

Note that this prepositional phrase (agent by-phrase) is an optional element and is
commonly omitted when it is an indefinite pronoun (somebody), personal pronouns (I,
you, he) or general nouns (people, everybody). Moreover, sometimes the agent is
implicitly understood in the verb (arrest=the police; correct=the teacher; report=a
journalist, etc).

4.2. Particular cases: specific syntactic patterns.

Within the last section, we shall deal with particular cases where syntactic patterns are
affected by certain types of constraints such as the choice of transitive vs. intransitive
verb, the choice between subject and object, the use of prepositions within phrasal verb
patterns and so on.

First of all, we shall analyse the choice between transitive vs. intransitive verbs. In this
case, we face the case of a verb with two objects, usually direct and indirect objects (i.e.
give, send, tell, show, buy, promise, pay, refuse, offer, etc). When these verbs are
used in the passive, we could have two passive forms (i.e. She was given a bulldog vs. A
bulldog was given to her. Note that the first sentence, where the indirect object becomes
the subject of the passive verb, is much more usual than the one that highlights the
direct object.

However, not all sentences with a transitive verb and a direct object can be made in the
passive form. There are certain verbs which have no corresponding passive change:

 The verb ‘have’ which has a durative nuance and therefore no passive equivalent
(i.e. I have a gold watch vs. NOT: a gold watch is had by me).
  The verbs ‘resemble, fit, lack, suit, etc’ (i. e. He resembles his grandfather vs. NOT
his grandfather is resembled by him);
 Verbs with the syntactic construction ‘verb + object + infinitive’ in the active form
often cannot be made in the passive form because of their structure. However, we
find some exceptions with:
o verbs such as ‘ask, order, allow, advise, forbid, mean, expect, request,
require, teach and so on (i.e. I was allowed to send him a present);
o verbs denoting ‘understanding’ (i.e. feel, presume, believe, say,
understand, etc) (i.e.He’s said to be extremely rich);
o verbs of perception (i.e. hear, help, make, see, touch, etc) (i.e. He was seen
with his lover).
o sentences with object complements, that is, with the active structure ‘verb
+ object + object complement’ (i.e. All of them considered him a loyal
person). Most of these structures can become passive (i.e. He was
considered (to be) a loyal person).
o Sentences with clause objects. As stated before, the subject or the object of
a sentence may be or contain a clause in the active form (i.e. People
believed that aliens exist). Then, passive sentences can be made with that-
or whether- clauses as subject with the structure ‘It is + past participle +
that + clause’ (i.e. It is said that aliens exist).

We shall mention the case in which prepositions may be linked to the past participle in
the passive sentence and therefore, be misunderstood by the agent. When past
participles are used as adjectives, other prepositions may introduce the agent (i.e. She
was frightened by a spider on her shoulder vs. She has always been terribly frightened
of spiders). Note that when the structure ‘verb + preposition + object combination’ is put
into the passive, the preposition will remain immediately after the verb (i.e. They threw
away the old newspapers vs. The old newspapers were thrown away)

Next, the particular case of phrasal or prepositional verbs, which can often occur in the
passive but not so freely as in the active form.

For example, we can say:

The children have been looked after.

But we cannot say:

The room was walked into.

It is possible to include the preposition when this is closely associated to the verb as part
of it.

4.3. Meaning

In sentences where there is a choice between the active and passive, the active is the
norm. Therefore, we shall list the main uses of the passive voice regarding everyday
usage and idiomatic expressions which are used by speakers or writers for the following
reasons

 When it is not necessary to mention the doer of the action as it is obvious or

evident from the context (Your hand will be X-rayed; The streets are swept every
day).
 When the active subject is unknown or cannot easily be stated, that is, we do not
know, or do not know exactly, or have forgotten who did the action (i.e. The
Prime Minister was murdered last year; My car has been moved!).
 When we are more interested in the action than the person who did the action
that is, we do not want to mention the active subject for a special reason, tact, or
feelings (i.e. The house next door has been bought). In more informal English we
could use the indefinite pronoun ‘they’ + an active verb (i.e. They are building a
new library = A new library is being built).
 When the subject of the active verb would be ‘people’ (i.e. He is suspected of
receiving stolen goods = People suspect of him to be receiving stolen goods).
 When the subject of the active sentence would be the indefinite pronoun ‘one’
(i.e. One can see this sort of advertisement everywhere = This sort of
advertisement is seen everywhere).
 To avoid an awkward or ungrammatical sentence. This is usually done by
avoiding a change of subject (i.e. When we arrived home, she gave him a present)
 since it would be better expressed (i.e. When he arrived home, he was given a
present).
 For psychological reasons. A speaker may use it to disclaim responsability for
disagreeable announcements (i.e. EMPLOYEE: New goods will have to be
exported). The speaker may know who performed the action but wish to avoid
giving the name.
 For the ‘have + object + past participle construction’ or ‘the causative ‘have’ with
perfective meaning (i.e. I had/got the car repaired) in order to talk colloquially to
replace a passive verb.
 End-focus. We often prefer to put longer expressions at the end of a sentence and
therefore we choose the passive voice (i.e. Mary’s child annoyed me = I was
annoyed by Mary’s child). A shift of meaning may imply a shift of voice in verb
phrases containing auxiliaries that have more than one meaning (i.e. Jim can’t do
it = It can’t be done by Jim).
 For stylistic use, since passives are very common in language for specific
purposes, that is, scientific, literary, military, descriptive, informative writing and
so on.

5. CONCLUSION
Grammatical Competence constitutes the structural pillar of any language. In the past it
was believed that learning grammar was learning a language. However, after Hymes´
assumptions in the 70’s, grammar has been given a different rank position. Learning a
language is not only accumulating grammar skills but also knowing WHAT to say, TO
WHOM, IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES and HOW to say it. Therefore, the concept of
grammar has been adapted to the new circumstances. Thus the CEF talks about
grammar accuracy which is not only the knowledge but the control we have of those
language patterns to achieve our communicative purposes. The more we learn about it
the more we can control communication. Grammar knowledge helps us to understand
explanations, presentations or participate in class discussions.
Second, Grammatical Competence implies a common framework of language structures
and functions that can be transferred from the mother tongue to a first, second or
additional language. As James Cummis states, this underlying knowledge is common
across languages and can facilitate the students’ success at school. Therefore it is now
accepted that the child’s first language is not a hindrance in terms of learning a first or
second language, the stronger grammatical accuracy in the mother tongue, the better
grammatical accuracy in the additional languages. Students may find some difficulty
when when dealing with the passive voice as it is far more used in English that in
Spanish nor in Valencian. We have to make students know that the passive voice is a
verbal form on its own which has to be used when required and not simply as a different
way of saying something.