PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

In active constructions we say what people or things do. The emphasis is

in the “doer”. E.g. My father built this house in 1964.
In passive constructions we say what happens to people or things. The
emphasis is on the receiver of the action or on the action itself. E.g.
This house was built (by my father) in 1964.
We use the passive forms when:
- we don’t know who the agent or “doer” is,
- the agent is obvious to everybody,
- we don’t want to identify the agent (maybe it is not relevant).
Passive forms are preferred in objective information such as news or
articles. They are only possible with transitive verbs (take an object).
However, there are a few verbs that although they have an object cannot
form the passive form: I have a house in the country or he resembles his
father.

Transformations

Active Passive
O.d. → subject
Verb → same form of to be + past participle
Subject → agent (mainly with –by and very often omitted).

If the agent is not a person we use “with” or “of” instead of “ by”.

The wall was covered with paint. The chair was made of wood.

With two objects in the active sentence we have two options in the
passive:
She gave her son a present → A present was given to her son ( + )
→ Her son was given a present.

After some verbs such as think, consider, believe, say… followed by

object + infinitive there are also two possibilities:
They believe him to be dangerous→ It is believed that he is dangerous
→ He is believed to be dangerous.

Sometimes “to get” is preferred to “to be” making the sentence slightly
more informal but the use of “to get” may also suggests that:
- the action was involuntary, unexpected or unwelcome:
Ten people were /got killed in the air strike.
- an achievement in the face of difficulty:
I finally got admitted!