ACTIVE / PASSIVE VOICE
A sentence in the active form can be changed into the
passive form. Similarly a sentence in the passive form can be changed into the
active form.
·
Active:
Brutus stabbed Caesar.
·
Passive:
Caesar was stabbed by Brutus.
·
Active: The
boy killed the spider.
·
Passive: The
spider was killed by the boy.
·
Active: The
teacher punished the boy.
·
Passive: The
boy was punished by the teacher.
·
Active: His
behavior vexes me.
·
Passive:
I am vexed by his behavior.
Notes:
When it is clear who the agent (doer of the action) is, it is not necessary to
mention it in the passive form. In fact, this omission often makes the sentence
look neater.
·
Active: The
audience loudly cheered the Mayor’s speech.
·
Passive: The
Mayor’s speech was loudly cheered (by the audience).
·
The active
voice is preferred when the agent (i.e. the person who performs the action) is
to be made prominent. The passive voice is preferred when the agent is unknown
or when we do not care to mention the agent.
The passive form is preferred in the following
sentences because the agent is either unknown or unimportant.
·
Passive: My
pocket has been picked.
·
Active:
Somebody has picked my pocket.
·
Passive: I
shall be obliged to go.
·
Active:
Circumstances will oblige me to go.
·
Passive:
Promises should be kept.
·
Active:
One should keep one’s promises.
ACITVE AND PASSIVE VOICE
A sentence can be written in
either active voice or passive voice without changing the meaning of it.
When the verb in a sentence
shows that the subject is the doer of the action, the verb is in the active
voice.
Examples:
1.
Children painted these pictures. (Children – subject; painted – verb;
pictures – object)
2.
James writes a letter (James – subject; writes – verb; letter – object)
When the verb in a sentence
shows that the subject is not the doer of the action, the verb is in the
passive voice. (Generally you will find “by” in the sentence. If “by” is not
there, you can put a question “Who?”, you will get an answer.)
Examples:
1.
These pictures were painted by children: (pictures – subject; painted –
verb; children - object
2.
A letter is written by James (letter – subject, written – verb; James –
Object)
Rules for conversion from
Active to Passive Voice
1.
The subject and object are interchanged
2.
The preposition BY is added before the object
3.
The verb is changed to past participle (3rd form of
verb)
4.
A new auxiliary is added to the Past Participle form of verb.
5.
If the subject or the object in an active voice sentence is a pronoun (I,
we, you, he, she, they, it) it changes: (I-me; we-us; you-you; he-him; she-her;
they-them; it-it) and vice-versa. e.g. I wrote a letter – A letter was
written by me. The prefect does keep accusing me daily – I am being accused by
the prefect daily.
6.
If the subject in the active voice sentence is unknown or unimportant or
obvious, by + object is omitted. We make butter from cow’s milk. Butter is made
from cow’s milk.
7.
If the verb in the active voice sentence has a modal in it, the verb is
changed to – modal + be + the past participle. e.g. Rajesh can lift this
box. This box can be lifted by Rajesh. We should obey the rules. The rules
should be obeyed.
8.
When there are two objects, only one object is interchanged. The second
object remains unchanged. (He told me a story – He- subject; me – object 1; a
story – object 2) ( I was told a story by him; A story was told to me by him)
The table below shows how
the verb is changed into its passive voice form in different tenses.
|
Tense
|
Active Voice
|
Passive Voice
|
|
The simple present
|
He eats an apple
|
An apple is eaten by him.
|
|
The present continuous
|
He is eating an apple.
|
An apple is being eaten by
him.
|
|
The present perfect
|
He has eaten an apple.
|
An apple has been eaten by
him.
|
|
The simple past
|
He ate an apple.
|
An apple was eaten by him.
|
|
The past continuous
|
He was eating an apple
|
An apple was being eaten
by him
|
|
The past perfect
|
He had eaten an apple
|
An apple had been eaten by
him
|
|
The simple future
|
He will eat an apple
|
An apple will be eaten by
him.
|
|
The Future continuous
|
He will be eating an
apple.
|
An apple will have been
eaten by him.
|
|
The Future in the past
|
He would have eaten an
apple
|
An apple would have been
eaten by him
|
Note: Some of the sentences
like – sentences constructed using auxiliary verbs (Tashi is a good boy);
perfect continuous tenses ( in all the three time periods – Present, Past,
Future) (My room mate has been copying my homework) and intransitive verbs ( I
go to temple or she has gone to the market) cannot be converted into passive
form .
Verbs are also said to be either active
(The executive committee approved the new policy) or passive (The
new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice. In
the active voice, the subject and verb relationship is straightforward: the
subject is a be-er or a do-er and the verb moves the sentence along. In the passive
voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er or a be-er, but is
acted upon by some other agentor by something unnamed (The new
policy was approved). Computerized grammar checkers can pick out a passive
voice construction from miles away and ask you to revise it to a more active
construction. There is nothing inherently wrong with the passive voice, but if
you can say the same thing in the active mode, do so (see exceptions below).
Your text will have more pizzazz as a result, since passive verb constructions
tend to lie about in their pajamas and avoid actual work.
We find an overabundance of the
passive voice in sentences created by self-protective business interests,
magniloquent educators, and bombastic military writers (who must get weary of
this accusation), who use the passive voice to avoid responsibility for actions
taken. Thus "Cigarette ads were designed to appeal especially to
children" places the burden on the ads — as opposed to "We designed
the cigarette ads to appeal especially to children," in which
"we" accepts responsibility. At a White House press briefing we might
hear that "The President was advised that certain members of Congress were
being audited" rather than "The Head of the Internal Revenue service
advised the President that her agency was auditing certain members of Congress"
because the passive construction avoids responsibility for advising and for
auditing. One further caution about the passive voice: we should not mix active
and passive constructions in the same sentence: "The executive committee approved
the new policy, and the calendar for next year's meetings was revised"
should be recast as "The executive committee approved the new
policy and revised the calendar for next year's meeting."
Take the quiz (below) as an exercise
in recognizing and changing passive verbs.
The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not
always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in
two situations:
· When it is
more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The
unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning
hours.
·
When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora
borealis can be observed in the early morning hours.
The passive voice is especially
helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific or technical writing or
lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or
principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I
poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of
acid is/was poured into the beaker." The passive voice is also
useful when describing, say, a mechanical process in which the details of
process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the
action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately
after the acid rinse."
We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to
shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what
becomes the subject in subsequent sentences.
The executive committee
approved an entirely new policy for dealing
with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policyhad
been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw
from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark
of "IW" . . . .
The paragraph is clearly
about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being
the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence.
The passive voice allows for this transition.†
Passive Verb
Formation
The
passive forms of a verb are created by combining a form of the "to be
verb" with the past participle of the main verb. Other helping verbs are
also sometimes present: "The measure could
have been killed in committee." The passive can be used, also,
in various tenses. Let's take a look at the passive forms of
"design."
|
Tense
|
Subject
|
Auxiliary
|
Past
Participle
|
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
|
Present
|
The car/cars
|
is
|
are
|
designed.
|
|
Present perfect
|
The car/cars
|
has been
|
have been
|
designed.
|
|
Past
|
The car/cars
|
was
|
were
|
designed.
|
|
Past perfect
|
The car/cars
|
had been
|
had been
|
designed.
|
|
Future
|
The car/cars
|
will be
|
will be
|
designed.
|
|
Future perfect
|
The car/cars
|
will have been
|
will have been
|
designed.
|
|
Present progressive
|
The car/cars
|
is being
|
are being
|
designed.
|
|
Past progressive
|
The car/cars
|
was being
|
were being
|
designed.
|
A sentence
cast in the passive voice will not always include an agent of the action. For instance if a gorilla crushes a tin can, we could say
"The tin can was crushedby the gorilla."
But a perfectly good sentence would leave out the gorilla: "The tin can was
crushed." Also, when an active sentence with an indirect object is
recast in the passive, the indirect object can take on the role of subject in
the passive sentence:
|
Active
|
Professor Villa gave Jorge an A.
|
|
Passive
|
An A was givento
Jorge by Professor Villa.
|
|
Passive
|
Jorge was given an A.
|
Only
transitive verbs (those that take objects) can be transformed into passive
constructions. Furthermore, active sentences containing certain verbs cannot be
transformed into passive structures. To have is the most important of
these verbs. We can say "He has a new car," but we cannot say "A
new car is had by him." We can say "Josefina lacked finesse,"
but we cannot say "Finesse was lacked." Here is a brief list of such
verbs*:
|
resemble
|
look like
|
equal
|
agree with
|
|
mean
|
contain
|
hold
|
comprise
|
|
lack
|
suit
|
fit
|
become
|
Verbals or verb forms can also take on features of the passive voice. An infinitive phrase in
the passive voice, for instance, can perform various functions within a
sentence (just like the active forms of the infinitive).
· Subject: To be elected by my peers is a great honor.
· Object: That child really likes to be read to by her mother.
· Modifier: Grasso was the first woman to be elected governor in her
own right.
The same is true of passive
gerunds.
· Subject: Being elected by my peers was a great thrill.
· Object: I really don't like being lectured to by my boss.
· Object of preposition: I am so tired of
being lectured to by my boss.
With passive participles,
part of the passive construction is often omitted, the result being a simple
modifying participial phrase.
· [Having been] designed for off-road performance, the Pathseeker
does not always behave well on paved highways.
sumber :
http://bloganemantab.blogspot.com/
Advanced English Grammar for TOEFL Preparation Oleh Hotben D
PT Bhuana Ilmu Populer
Kelompok Gramedia Jakarta , 2010
