FormPhrase Structure: pass be . . . –en

Long Passive: the agent is expressed in the by-phrase

Short Passive: the agent is unexpressed

The Passive with Tense and Aspect

Simple present passive: The dog is bathed outside.

With Modals:

With Present Perfect:

With Present Progressive:

With Simple Past:

With Past Progressive:

With be going to for future:

The dog should be bathed outside.

The dog has been bathed outside.

The dog is being bathed outside.

The dog was bathed outside.

The dog was being bathed outside.

The dog is going to be bathed outside.

Be versus Get1. Be and get don’t function the same in questions:

2. Get-passive can occur more readily with the perfect progressives:

Was Henry arrested? Did Henry get arrested? and negatives:

Henry wasn’t arrested. Henry didn’t get arrested.We must include operator addition when using GET in questions and negatives.

His plans have been getting sidetracked for years. Vs. His plans have been being sidetracked for years.

HaveHave . . . NP . . . –en. Note the different form due to the intervening noun phrase.

Mark had his appointment cancelled.

This sentence can have two meanings:

Passive (Experiential): Someone else cancelled the appointment; it was beyond Mark’s control.

Causative: Mark arranged for his meeting to be cancelled.

What’s the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs?

Passive Only

Transitive: Intransitive:Take an object Don’t take an objectOnly transitive verbs may be in the passive voice.Some passive sentences have no active voice counterpart:

President Obama was born in 1961.? His mother bore President Obama in 1961.

Other verbs that occur commonly in the passive voice include but are not limited to:

be deemed, be fined, be hospitalized, be jailed, be scheduled, etc.

Headlines:Death row inmate is deemed mentally ill.Extra police scheduled for occupied Tucson.Dad is jailed for putting son in oven.

MeaningThe passive has a grammatical meaning: it focuses on putting the receiver of the action in the subject position and the subject is thus acted upon. As Shibitani (1985) states, the agent is “defocused”.

The passive requires a transitive verb; however, not every passive sentence with a transitive verb is acceptable.

A. This car was made by Toyota.B. Cars were made by Toyota.

1. The more definite the subject, the better

A. Adele’s song, Rolling in the Deep has been heard by everyone who listens to the radio.

B. Adele’s song, Rolling in the Deep has been heard by Mary.

2. With stative verbs, the more indefinite the object in the by-phrase, the better

A. The boy was given an award by the principal.B. The award was desired by the boy.

3. The more the verb denotes a physical action, the better

Meaning difference between Active and Passive

Everyone in the room speaks two languages. vs. Two languages are spoken by everyone in the room.

Few people read many books. Vs. Many books are read by few people.

Moles dig tunnels. Vs. Tunnels are dug by moles.

Be versus GetGet-passive, like Japanese passive, tends to be used adversely.

Get slapped, hit, whacked, trapped, snatched, punished, etc.

Get-passive tends to be used with verbs semantically related to:Physical assault – get hitHindrance – get trapped

Transference – get snatchedEmotional or Mental strain – get punished

Get has lack of expressed agent and cannot replace be-passives with non-dynamic verbs.

This bed had not been slept in. vs. This bed had not got slept in.

Get is usually associated with verbs that emphasize actions or processes and are more likely to occur with adverbs of frequency.

The man continually got wiped out.

1. The middle voice allows the subject of a sentence to be the recipient of the action, but the morphology of the verb to be in the active voice.

A. Her high C shattered the glass. (active voice)B. The glass was shattered by her high C. (passive voice)C. The glass shattered. (middle voice)

2. English allows a representation of processes in terms of actions (active or passive voice) and happenings (middle voice).

3. English uses ergative, or change-of-state verbs (shatter) to express spontaneous occurrences. Ergative verbs can occur in the passive, active, or middle voice.

Middle Voice

Use (1/4)The function of the passive is to defocus the agent.

The passive is most frequently used when it is not known or not important to know exactly who performs an action.

Rice is grown in India.Our house was built in 1980.This olive oil was imported from Crete.

Sometimes, we use the passive with the agent because we want to focus attention on the subject of the sentence.

This rug was made by my aunt.That rug was made by my mother.

The focus of attention is on two rugs.

The passive is used when the agent is not to bementioned because:

Use (2/4)

• It is redundant or easy to supply –Over 2,000 different varieties of potato are grown in Peru.

• It is unknown – Julie’s car was stolen yesterday.

• The speaker/writer is being tactful – Apparently, we were given the wrong information.

• The speaker is being evasive –A huge error was made on the report, so our group received a poor letter grade.

Use (3/4)The passive is used when the nonagent

(recipient of the action) is:- more closely related than the agent to the theme of the text

e.g. scientific writing

- a participant in the immediately preceding sentenceLorenzo arrived in Paris as a down-at-heel political refugee without friends or money; luckily for him, France at that time was ruled by an Italian . . .

** The passive is used more in some genres than others. Passives are more frequent with scientific or journalistic writing than it is with fictional and conversational English.

Use (4/4)Include the agent when:

It is new information – Sam’s house was robbed by the man who escaped from prison.

It is nonhuman –The pool is cleaned throughout the day by the vacuum.

It is a well-known personage and should be included as propositional information –

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written by Mark Twain.

With a partner, discuss why the agent is or is not included in the following sentences.

• My shoes were made in Italy.• The Mona Lisa was painted by de Vinci.• While Marty was walking down the street, her purse was snatched by a young man.• The bank was robbed yesterday.• Margaret was given some bad advice about

selecting courses.

Activity

Common Difficulties

1. When to use the passive voice2. Adjective vs. Passive3. Middle Voice

When to use the Passive Voice (1/2)

A. Most languages in the world use different voices to put different constitutes in initial position.

In the Bantu languages, the passive voices are used if the agent is inanimate and the receiver is animate.

e.g.) The election bothered Nancy. Nancy was bothered by the election. (o)

B. The subject is negatively affected by the action portrayed in the verb(Adversative passive voice).

Japanese students may puzzle over when to use the passive voice in English.

When to use the Passive Voice (1/2)

e.g.) John ga ame ni fur-are-ta. John (topic marker) rain by fall. John was fallen by rain.

Adjective vs. Passives (1/2)• A past participle can function as a passive

verb and adjective in a sentence.

• How to distinguish the passive participle from the adjective at a sentence-level?

The use of by with a noun phrase to mark an gent in the passive voice.

e.g.) The beans were refried by someone (passive)

(adjective)

Adjective vs. Passives (2/2)

Not all adjectival and passive participle pairs are pronounced the same.

The suspect was alleged to have taken the money. /əlédƷd/

The alleged thief… /əlédƷid/

Middle Voice (1/3)

• English allows a representation of processes in terms of actions and happening. In other words, English uses active, passive, and middle voices in order to express processes.

• English uses ergative, or change-of-state verbs to express spontaneous occurrences.

Ergative verbs( meaning change-of-state)

Cooking Physical movement Involving Vehicles Etc.

Bake, boil, cook, defrost, fry, roast, thicken, etc.

Move, rock, shake, spin, swing, turn, etc.

Drive, fly, park, reverse, run, sail, etc.

Shatter, age, begin, bend, break, burst, change, close, cool, condense, decrease, develop, etc.

-I’m baking a cake.-The cake is baking.-They cake is being baked by her friends.

-The boy spun the top. -The top spun. -The top was spun by the boy.

-She drove the car.-The car drives well.-The car was driven all the way to Tallahassee.

-Someone broke the window.-The window was broken.-The window broke.

Middle Voice (2/3)

The middle voice can also be expressed by intransitive verbs that take the focus of the process as subjects. However, they do not occur in the passive voice since intransitive verbs have no transitive counterparts.

Intransitive Verbs

Occurrence Inherently Directed Motion

Description

Happen, occur, take place Arrive, fall, rise, emerge, go

Appear, disappear, vanish

The incident occurred before anyone knew what was happening.

The dough rose. The trail disappear into the woods.

Middle Voice (3/3)

A. When the “change-of-state” sentences are preferred to passive sentences?

1) When the focus is on the change of state and the agent is irrelevant.

The bank closes at 5. p.m.

2) When the writer’s or speaker’s objective is to create an aura of mystery of suspense. That is, when things seem to be happening without the intervention of an agent.

We were sitting quietly after dinner, when suddenly the door opened.

3) When the subject is something so fragile or unstable that it can break, change, dissolve, and so on without any apparent intervention on the part of any agent.

Left hanging on the fence, the red balloon suddenly burst.

Difficulties related toMiddle Voice (1/3)

4) When it is natural to expect to occur (based on physical, social, or psychological laws).

The ice on the pond melted earlier than usual.

5) When there are so many possible causes for a change of state that it would be misleading to imply a single agent.

Prices increased due to a variety factors.

Difficulties related toMiddle Voice (2/3)

B. Which verbs are ergative?

Many of the old buildings in the center of town have recently demolished. (X)

C. Intransitive verbs cannot occur in the passive voice.

The accident was happened last night.

D. Wrong instruction: Some Chinese students have been taught that sentences with grammatical subjects that are not the agent require the passive in English. Students will need to learn about the middle voice.

Difficulties related toMiddle Voice (3/3)

Demonstration #1Intermediate ESL Students

Overboard (1987)Confrontation between Joanna and Dean

Demonstration #2Intermediate ESL Students

The City of Placentia –Then and Now

What has been changed?

ThenNow

What has been changed?

Then Now

What has been changed?

Then Now

What has been changed?

Then Now