The Passive Voice

The Passive Voice shows that the person or thing denoted by the subject is acted
upon.
The PV can be used:
a) without a doer of the action being mentioned. In this case the doer is either
unknown or unimportant, or is obvious from the context – e.g. In silence the
soup was finished and the fish was brought.
*the agent is often omitted in the passive voice when the subject of the active
sentence is one of the following words – people, one, someone/somebody,
they, he, she…
b) when the action itself is more important than the person who carries it out,
as in news headlines, newspaper articles, formal notices, instructions,
advertisements – e.g. The new hospital will be opened by the Queen on May
15th.
c) When we refer to an unpleasant event and we do not want to say who or
what is to blame – e.g. A lot of mistakes have been made (You have made a
lot of mistakes).
d) with the doer of the action being mentioned. This occurs only when the doer
of the action is to some extent emphasized. We use preposition by to
introduce the doer of the action – e.g. They were introduced by Holly.
*we use the preposition with + instrument, material, ingredient to say what
the agent use – e.g. The cake was made with eggs, flour and milk.
The formation of the Passive Voice.
The PV is formed by means of the auxiliary verb to be in the required form and
Participle II of the notional verb. (picture)
The Present Perfect Continuous, The Future Continuous and The past perfect
Continuous and the future perfect continuous are not normally used in the passive.
* to express a action going on at the definite moment in the future only the future
continuous active is possible.
* to express the action which began before a definite moment in the present, past
or future and continued up to that moment the Present, Past or Future Continuous
Active are generally used.
*We can use the verb to get instead of the verb to be in everyday speech when we
talk about things that happen by accident or unexpectedly – e.g. Four people got
hurt in the car crash. (= 4 people were hurt…).
Changing from active into Passive
To change a sentence from the active into the passive you need:
1)the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence;
2) the active verb remains in the same tense, but changes into a passive form;
3) the subject of the active sentence becomes the agent, and is either introduced
with the preposition by or omitted.
only transitive verbs (verbs followed by an object) can be changed onto the Passive
– e.g. Grandma knitted my jumper – My jumper was knitted by Grandma. !!!BUT
We travelled to Lisbon last summer – can’t be changed.
* The Passive Voice is possible with intransitive verb followed by prepositions:
to account for(объяснять), to agree upon (соглашаться по поводу чего-либо),
to allude to (упоминать, ссылаться, намекать на), to arrive at (a conclusion,
agreement, decision), to call for (вызывать), to call upon (просить), to comment
upon (комментировать), to count upon (рассчитывать на), to depend on
(зависеть от), to dispose of (опровергнуть, рассмотреть факты), to fire at
(стрелять в), to hear of (слышать о ком-то, чем-то), to insist on
(настаивать на), to interfere with (мешать, связываться с ), to laugh at
(смеяться над), to listen to (слушать), to look after (присматривать), to look
at (смотреть на что-то), to look down upon (смотреть на кого-то сверху
вниз), to look up to (смотреть на кого-то снизу вверх), to provide for
(обеспечивать средствами к существованию), to put up at (остановиться),
to put up with (примириться), to read to (читать кому-либо), to refer to
(относиться к), to rely on (полагаться на), to run over (выходить за какой-то
предел), to send for (отправить за кем-то), to speak about (говорить о чем-
то), to stare at (глазеть на), to talk about (говорить о).
E.g. At last the agreement was arrived at. Her strange behaviour was commented
upon. This is certainly a great inconvenience, but it must be put up with.

*Object pronouns (me, you, him) become subject pronouns (I, you, he) in the
passive.
When the verb of the active sentence is followed by preposition, the preposition is
kept in the passive sentence as well – e.g. They presented him with a medal – He
was presented with a medal.
When we want to find out who or what did sth, then the passive question is as
follows: Who was Australia discovered by? / What was the fire caused by?
*The verbs to hear, to help, to see, to make are followed by the bare infinitive in
the active but they are followed by the to-infinitive in the passive. – e.g. They saw
him leave the building. – He was seen to leave the building.
BUT!!! to hear, to see, to watch + -ing form (active and passive) if they denote the
process from the very beginning and up to the end) – They saw them running
down the stairs. – He was seen running down the stairs.

* The following verbal phraseological units can be used in the PV: to find fault
with (придираться, находить недостатки), to lose sight of (терять из виду),
to make fun of (шутить, смеяться над), to make use of (использовать), to set
fire to (поджечь что-то), to take notice of (заметить что-то), to take care of
(заботиться о).
*There are some verbs which take 2 objects: bring, tell, send, show, teach,
promise, buy, throw, write, ward, hand, sell, owe, grant, allow, feed, pass, post,
read, take, offer, give, pay, lend we can make two different passive sentences. –
Patrick gave Laura some flowers – Laura was given some flowers by Patrick.
Some flowers were given to Laura by Patrick.