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The following pair of examples illustrates the contrast between active and passive voice in English. In sentence (1), the verb form ate is in the active voice, but in sentence (2), the verb form was eaten is in the passive voice. Independent of voice, the cat is the Agent (the doer) of the action of eating in both sentences.
Many languages have both an active and a passive voice; this allows for greater flexibility in sentence construction, as either the semantic agent or patient may take the syntactic role of subject. [5] The use of passive voice allows speakers to organize stretches of discourse by placing figures other than the agent in subject position.
Passive writing is not necessarily slack and indirect. Many famously vigorous passages use the passive voice, as in these examples with the passive verbs italicized: 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.)
This contrasts with the passive voice, where the subject is the recipient of the action, such as in "The fish was eaten by the cat." The use of both active and passive voices in languages enhances versatility in sentence construction, allowing either the semantic agent or patient to assume the syntactic role of the subject. [2]
The passive voice in English may appear to be in the OVS order, but that is not an accurate description. In an active voice sentence like Sam ate the apples, the grammatical subject, Sam, is the agent and is acting on the patient, the apples, which are the object of the verb, ate.
The voice [13] of a verb expresses whether the subject of the verb is performing the action of the verb or whether the action is being performed on the subject. The two most common voices are the active voice (as in "I saw the car") and the passive voice (as in "The car was seen by me" or simply "The car was seen").
Norwegian has several common deponents which use the -es passive ending in the active voice, instead of the usual -er active ending (and retains the -es in the infinitive, where most verbs end solely in -e): kjennes ' perceive ' lykkes ' succeed ' synes ' opine, think ' trives ' thrive ' The past tense is indicated by -d-or -t-, e.g. kjentes ...
This can variously have a middle-voice meaning (subject acting onto itself, or for its own benefit) or a passive-voice meaning (something acts onto the subject). An example sentence is El padre se enojó al ver a su hijo romper la lámpara. The English translation is "The father became angry upon seeing his son break the lamp."