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The English passive voice typically involves forms of the verbs to be or to get followed by a passive participle as the subject complement—sometimes referred to as a passive verb. [ 1 ] English allows a number of additional passive constructions that are not possible in many other languages with analogous passive formations to the above.
Different languages use various grammatical forms to indicate passive voice. In some languages, passive voice is indicated by verb conjugation, specific forms of the verb. Examples of languages that indicate voice through conjugation include Greek, Latin, and North Germanic languages such as Swedish.
The usual passive voice is the se pasiva, in which the verb is conjugated in the active voice, but preceded by the se particle: La puerta se abre. La puerta se cierra. Estar is used to form what might be termed a static passive voice (not regarded as a passive voice in traditional Spanish grammar; it describes a state that is the result of an ...
Ancient Greek has middle-voice deponents (some of which are very common) and some passive-voice deponents. An example in classical Greek is ἔρχομαι (erchomai, 'I come' or 'I go'), middle/passive in form but translated into English using the active voice (since English has no middle voice).
For example, in the sentence "one hundred votes are required to pass the bill," there is no ambiguity, and the actors including the members of the voting community cannot practicably be named even if it were useful to do so. [17] [18] The scientific journal article is another example of the legitimate use of the passive voice.
Spanish is an example of a modern language with a mediopassive voice, normally indicated by the use of a reflexive pronoun. 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).
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 oranges, the grammatical subject, Sam , is the agent and is acting on the patient , the oranges , which are the object of the verb, ate .
For example, in Dutch and Turkish, unergative verbs can be used in impersonal passive constructions, but unaccusative verbs cannot. [11] In the following example from Dutch, the verb is unergative, describing a voluntary action, and can be made passive: Er wordt hier veel geskied. "A lot of skiing is done here." (lit. "it is skied much here")