The subject
of a sentence or clause featuring the passive voice typically 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 Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White (see The Elements
of Style, 1919), discourage use of the passive in English, its usefulness is
generally recognized, particularly in cases where the patient is more important
than the agent, but also in some cases where it is desired to emphasize
the agent.
Identifying 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.
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 a copula 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.
Reasons for using the passive voice
The passive voice can be used
without referring to the agent of an action; it may therefore be used when the
agent is unknown or unimportant, or the speaker does not wish to mention the
agent.
·
Three stores were robbed last night. (the identity of
the agent may be unknown)
·
A new cancer drug has been discovered. (the identity
of the agent may be unimportant in the context)
·
Mistakes have been made on this project. (the speaker
may not wish to identify the agent)
The last sentence illustrates a
frequently criticized use of the passive – the evasion of responsibility by
failure to mention the agent (which may even be the speaker himself).
·
The mixture was heated to 300°C.
However the passive voice can also
be used together with a mention of the agent, using a by-phrase. In
this case the reason for use of the passive is often connected with the
positioning of this phrase at the end of the clause (unlike in the active
voice, where the agent, as subject, normally precedes the verb). Here, in
contrast to the examples above, passive constructions may in fact serve to
place emphasis on the agent, since it is natural for information being
emphasized to come at the end:
·
Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his
own doctor!
In more technical terms, such uses
can be expected in sentences where the agent is the focus (comment, rheme),
while the patient (the undergoer of the action) is the topic or theme (seeTopic–comment). There is
a tendency for sentences to be formulated so as to place the focus at the end,
and this can motivate the choice of active or passive voice:
·
My taxi hit an old lady. (the taxi is the topic, the
lady is the focus)
·
My mother was hit by a taxi. (the mother is the topic,
the taxi is the focus)
Similarly, the passive may be used because
the noun phrase denoting the agent is a long one (containing many modifiers), since it
is convenient to place such phrases at the end of a clause:
·
The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans,
two researchers in the university's genetic engineering lab.
In some situations, the passive may
be used so that the most dramatic word, or punchline, appears at the end of the
sentence.
Advice
against the passive voice
Many language critics and
language-usage manuals discourage use of the passive voice. This advice is
not usually found in older guides, emerging only in the first half of the
twentieth century. In 1916, the British writer Arthur Quiller-Couch criticized
this grammatical voice:
Generally, use transitive verbs, that
strike their object; and use them in the active voice, eschewing the stationary
passive, with its little auxiliary its’s and was’s,
and its participles getting into the light of your adjectives, which should be
few. For, as a rough law, by his use of the straight verb and by his economy of
adjectives you can tell a man’s style, if it be masculine or neuter, writing or
'composition'.
The active voice is usually more
direct and vigorous than the passive . . . This rule does not, of course, mean
that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice, which is frequently
convenient and sometimes necessary . . . The need to make a particular word the
subject of the sentence will often . . . determine which voice is to be used.
The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This
is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action, but in writing
of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made
lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some
such perfunctory expression as there is or could be
heard.
In 1946, in the essay Politics
and the English Language, George Orwell recommended the active voice
as an elementary principle of composition: "Never use the passive where
you can use the active."
The Columbia Guide to Standard
American English (1993) stated that:
Active voice makes
subjects do something (to something); passive voice permits
subjects to have something done to them (by someone or something). Some argue
that active voice is more muscular, direct, and
succinct, passive voice flabbier, more indirect, and wordier.
If you want your words to seem impersonal, indirect, and noncommittal, passive is
the choice, but otherwise, active voice is almost invariably
likely to prove more effective.
Krista Ratcliffe, a professor at
Marquette University, notes the use of passives as an example of the role of
grammar as "...a link between words and magical conjuring : passive
voice mystifies accountability by erasing who or what performs an action"
Advice in
favor of the passive voice
Jan Freeman, a reporter for The
Boston Globe, said that the passive voice does have its uses, and that
"all good writers use the passive voice." For example, despite
Orwell's advice to avoid the passive, his Politics and the English
Language (1946) employs passive voice for about 20 percent of its
constructions. By comparison, a statistical study found about 13 percent
passive constructions in newspapers and magazines.
Passive writing is not necessarily
slack and indirect. Many famously vigorous passages use the passive voice, as
in these examples:
·
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and
hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
places plain. (King James Bible, Isaiah 40:4)
·
For of those to whom much is given, much is required.
(John F. Kennedy's quotation
of Luke 12:48 in his address to the Massachusetts legislature, 9 January 1961.)
·
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed
by so many to so few. (Winston Churchill addressing the House of
Commons, 20 August 1940.)
Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1994)
recommends the passive voice when identifying the object (receiver) of the
action is more important than the subject (agent), and when the agent is
unknown, unimportant, or not worth mentioning:
·
The child was struck by the car.
·
The store was robbed last night.
·
Plows should not be kept in the garage.
·
Kennedy was elected president.
The principal criticism against the
passive voice is its potential for evasion of responsibility. This is because a
passive clause may omit the agent even where it is important:
·
We had hoped to report on this problem, but the data
were inadvertently deleted from our files.
(See weasel words.) However, the passive can also be
used to emphasize the agent, and it may be better for that role than the active
voice, because the end of a clause is the ideal place to put something you wish
to emphasize, or a long noun phrase, as in the examples given in the previous
section:
·
Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his
own doctor!
·
The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans,
two researchers in the university's genetic engineering lab.
Geoffrey Pullum writes
that "The passive is not an undesirable feature limited to bad writing,
it's a useful construction often needed for clear expression, and every good
writer uses it."
Passive
Constructions
Canonical
passives
In the most commonly considered type
of passive clause, a form of the verb be (or sometimes get)
is used as an auxiliary together with the past participle of
a transitive verb; that verb is missing its direct object, and
the patient of the action (that which
would be denoted by the direct object of the verb in an active clause) is
denoted instead by the subject of the clause. For example, the active clause:
·
John threw the ball.
contains threw as a
transitive verb with John as its subject and the ball as
its direct object. If we recast the verb in the passive voice (was thrown),
then the ball becomes the subject (it is "promoted"
to the subject position) and John disappears:
·
The ball was thrown.
The original subject (the agent) can
optionally be re-inserted using the preposition by.
·
The ball was thrown by John.
The above example uses the
verb be (in the past tense form was) to make the
passive. It is often possible to use the verb get as an
alternative (possibly with slightly different meaning); for example, the active
sentence "The ball hit Bob" may be recast in either of the following
forms:
·
Bob was hit by the ball.
·
Bob got hit by the ball.
The auxiliary verb of the passive
voice (be or get) may appear in any combination
of tense, aspect and mood, and can
also appear in non-finite form (infinitive, participle
or gerund). See the article on English verb forms for
more information. Notice that this includes use of the verb be in progressive aspect, which does
not normally occur when be is used as a simple copula. Some
examples:
·
The food is being served. (present
progressive passive)
·
The stadium will have been built by
next January. (future perfect passive)
·
I would have got injured if I had
stayed in my place. (conditional perfect passive with get)
·
It isn't nice to be insulted. (passive
infinitive)
·
Having been humiliated, he left the stage. (passive
present participle, perfect aspect)
Promotion of
indirect objects
Unlike some other languages, English
also allows passive clauses in which an indirect object, rather than a direct object, is
promoted to the subject. For example:
·
John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book (by
John).
In the active form, gave is
the verb; John is its subject, Mary its
indirect object, and a book its direct object. In the passive
forms, the indirect object has been promoted and the direct object has been
left in place. (In this respect, English resembles dechticaetiative
languages.)
It is normally only the
first-appearing object that can be promoted; promotion of the indirect object takes
place from a construction in which it precedes the direct object (i.e. where
there is no to orfor before the indirect object),
whereas promotion of the direct object in such cases takes place from a
construction in which the indirect object follows the direct (this time being
accompanied byto or for; see English grammar: Verb phrases).
For example:
·
John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book. (and
not normally: ??A book was given Mary.)
·
John gave a book to Mary. → A book
was given to Mary. (and not: *Mary was given a book to.)
Similar restrictions apply to the
prepositional passive, as noted in the following section.
Prepositional
passive
It is also possible, in some cases,
to promote the object of a preposition. This may be called the prepositional
passive, or sometimes the pseudo-passive (although the
latter term can also have other meanings, particularly in descriptions of other
languages).
·
They talked about the problem. → The problem was
talked about.
In the passive form here, the
preposition is "stranded"; that
is, it is not followed by an object.
The prepositional passive is common
especially in informal English. However some potential uses appear
grammatically unacceptable; compare the following examples given by Pullum:
·
Someone has slept in this bunk. → This bunk has been
slept in. (fully acceptable)
·
Someone has slept above this bunk. → ??This bunk
has been slept above. (barely acceptable)
The second sentence appears
unacceptable because sleeping above a bunk does not change its state; the verb
phrase been slept above does not express a "relevantly important
property" of the bunk.
It is not possible to promote a
prepositional object if the verb also has a direct object; any passive
rendering of the sentence must instead promote the direct object. For example:
·
Someone has put a child in this bunk. → *This bunk has
been put a child in. (unacceptable)
·
Someone has put a child in this bunk. → A child has
been put in this bunk. (acceptable)
Stative and
adjectival uses
A type of clause that is similar or
identical in form to the passive clauses described above has the past
participle used to denote not an action, but a state being the result of an
action. For example, the sentence The window was broken may
have two different meanings:
·
The window was broken, i.e Someone or
something broke the window. (action, event)
·
The window was broken, i.e. The
window was not intact. (resultant state)
The first sentence is an example of
the canonical English passive as described above. However the second case is
distinct; such sentences are not always considered to be true passives, since
the participle is being used adjectivally; they are sometimes called false
passives. If they are considered to be passives, they may be called stative (or static,
or resultative) passives, since they represent a state or result.
By contrast the canonical passives, representing an action or event, may then
be called dynamic or eventive passives.
The ambiguity in such sentences
arises because the verb be is used in English both as the
passive auxiliary and as the ordinary copular verb for linking to predicate
adjectives. When get is used to form the passive, there is no
ambiguity: The window got broken cannot have a stative
meaning. (For ways in which some other languages make this distinction,
see Passive voice: Stative and dynamic
passive.) If a distinct adjective exists for the purpose of expressing the state, then
the past participle is less likely to be used for that purpose; this is the
case with the verb open, for which there exists an adjective open,
so the sentence The door was opened more likely refers to the
action rather than the state, since in the stative case one could simply
say The door was open.
Past participles of transitive verbs
can also be used as adjectives (as in a broken doll),
and the participles used in the above-mentioned "stative"
constructions are often considered to be adjectival (in predicative use).
Such constructions may then also be called adjectival passives (although
they are not normally considered true passives). For example:
·
She was relieved to find her car.
Here, relieved is
an ordinary adjective, though it derives from the past participle of relieve. In
other sentences that same participle may be used to form the true (dynamic)
passive: He was relieved of duty.
When the verb being put into the
passive voice is a stative verb anyway, the distinctions
between uses of the past participle become less clear, since the canonical
passive already has a stative meaning. (For example: People know his
identity → His identity is known.) However it
is sometimes possible to impart a dynamic meaning using get as
the auxiliary, as in get known with the meaning "become known".
Passive
constructions without an exactly corresponding active
Some passive constructions are not
derived exactly from a corresponding active construction in the ways described
above. This is particularly the case with sentences containing content clauses(usually that-clauses).
Given a sentence in which the role of direct object is played by such a clause,
for example
·
They say (that) he cheats.
it is possible to convert this to a
passive by promoting the content clause to subject; in this case, however, the
clause typically does not change its position in the sentence, and an expletive ittakes
the normal subject position:
·
It is said that he cheats.
Another way of forming passives in
such cases involves promoting the subject of the content clause to the subject
of the main clause, and converting the content clause into a non-finite clausewith
the to-infinitive. This infinitive is marked
for grammatical aspect to
correspond to the aspect (or past tense) expressed in the content clause.
For example:
·
They say that he cheats. → He is said to cheat.
·
They think that I am dying. → I am thought to be
dying.
·
They report that she came back / has come back. → She
is reported to have come back.
·
They say that she will resign. → e.g. She
is said to be going to resign.
Some verbs are used almost
exclusively in the passive voice. This is the case with rumor, for
example. The following passive sentences are possible:
·
He was rumored to be a war veteran. / It was rumored
that he was a war veteran.
but it is not possible to use the
active counterpart *They rumored that he was a war veteran. (This
was once possible, but has fallen out of use.)
Another situation in which the
passive uses a different construction than the active involves the verb make,
meaning "compel". When this verb is used in the active voice it takes
the bare infinitive (without the particle to), but in the passive
voice it takes the to-infinitive.
For example:
·
They made Jane attend classes.
·
Jane was made to attend classes.
Double
passives
The construction called double
passive can arise when one verb appears in the to-infinitive
as the complement of another verb.
If the first verb takes a direct
object ahead of the infinitive complement (this applies to raising-to-object verbs, where the
expected subject of the second verb is raised to the position of object of the
first verb), then the passive voice may be used independently for either or
both of the verbs:
·
We expect you to complete the project. (you is
raised from subject of complete to object of expect)
·
You are expected to complete the
project. (passive voice used for expect)
·
We expect the project to be completed.
(passive voice used for complete; now the project is
raised to object)
·
The project is expected to be
completed. (double passive)
Other verbs which can behave
similarly to expect in such constructions include order, tell, persuade,
etc., leading to such double passives as The man was ordered to be shot and I
was persuaded to be ordained.
Similar constructions sometimes
occur, however, when the first verb is raising-to-subject rather than
raising-to-object – that is, when there is no object before the infinitive
complement. For example, with attempt, the active voice
construction is simply We attempted to complete the project. A
double passive formed from that sentence would be:
·
The project was attempted to be completed.
with both verbs changed
simultaneously to the passive voice, even though the first verb takes no object
– it is not possible to say *We attempted the project to be completed,
which is the sentence from which the double passive would appear to derive.
This latter double passive
construction is criticized as questionable both grammatically and
stylistically. Fowler calls it "clumsy and incorrect", suggesting that it springs
from false analogy with the former (acceptable) type of double passive, though
conceding its usefulness in some legal and quasi-legal language. Other verbs
mentioned (besides attempt) with which the construction is found
include begin, desire, hope, propose, seek and threaten.
Similarly, The American Heritage Book of English Usage declares
this construction unacceptable. It nonetheless occurs in
practice in a variety of contexts.
Additional
passive constructions
Certain other constructions are
sometimes classed a
s passives. The following types are
mentioned by Pullum.
A bare passive clause is
similar to a typical passive clause, but without the passive auxiliary verb (so
it is a non-finite clause consisting of a subject
together with a verb phrase based on a past participle with the passive
construction). These can be used in such contexts as newspaper headlines:
·
City hall damaged by hail
·
Our work done, we made our way back home.
·
That said, there are also other considerations.
Other constructions are mentioned in
which a passive past participial clause is used, even though it is not
introduced by the auxiliary be or get (or is
introduced by get with a direct object):
·
I had my car cleaned by a professional.
·
Jane had her car stolen last week.
·
You ought to get that lump looked at.
·
This software comes pre-installed by the manufacturer.
In the concealed passive,
the present participle or gerund form (-ing form)
appears rather than the past participle. This can appear after need,
and for some speakers after want (with similar meaning).
For example:
·
Your car needs washing. (meaning "needs to be
washed"; some speakers might say needs washed)
·
That rash needs looking at by a specialist.
·
His hair wants cutting.
(An idiomatic expression with the
same construction is ... doesn't bear thinking about.) The
verbs need and want also have similar uses
with an object:
·
I need/want my room painting.
Middle voice and passival
The term middle voice is sometimes used to refer to
verbs used without a passive construction, but in a meaning where the
grammatical subject is understood as undergoing the action. The meaning may
be reflexive:
·
Fred shaved, i.e. Fred shaved himself
but is not always:
·
These cakes sell well, i.e. [we] sell
these cakes [successfully]
·
The clothes are soaking, i.e. [the
water] is soaking the clothes
Only certain verbs can be used with
such meanings. However a more general construction, formerly used in English,
was the passival, where the progressive aspect of a
verb was used in the active voice, but with passive meaning. Examples of this
would be:
·
The house is building (modern English: The house is
being built)
·
The meal is eating (modern English: The meal is being
eaten)
The passival was displaced in the
early 19th century by the passive progressive (the form is being built as
given above). It has been suggested that the passive progressive appeared
just to the east of Bristol and was popularized by
the Romantic poets. Only certain verbs can be
used with passival-type sentences in modern English, such as the verb soak in
the example given above.
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