Talk:English passive voice/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Re "Disambiguation of the passive voice "

In the clause John was married, the use of the verb was expects an adjective to describe John, so married is a technical ambiguity because it is not a simple adjective but a complex state, a noun (verb with tense) used as an adjective mistaken for a verb.

It seems to me that this is mixing syntax ((simple) adjective = lexical category) with semantics (a complex state).

Compare John was married up until last year (when his wife left him) with John was married last week (to his girlfriend of five years). In both sentences married is the past participle of verb marry. In the first it is being used adjectivally (denoting a state); in the second, as part of the periphrastic English passive.

I'm unsure as to what was meant by "a noun (verb with tense) used as an adjective mistaken for a verb." Adding tense to a verb does not make it a noun, only a tensed verb. The participles are in fact non-finite (= non-tensed) forms, which is why they require auxiliary/helping verbs. (The inflections -ing & -ed/-en actually indicate aspect.)

(The example sentences following the above also seem a bit odd to me, but more on that later.)

I'm placing the above here for possible discussion but have not made any changes to the article. --RJCraig 11:12, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

BUTT SCRATCHER! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.210.73.65 (talk) 18:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of the above. The statement in the article makes no sense whatsoever. Does no one else find this a rather poor article? RJCraig 10:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

We could reword the explaination to improve clarity of the differences. I tried to put it in layman's terms and give examples to demonstrate the ambiguities. Perhaps, "marry" is not the best example if we consider these:

1. The object was square. (was is the verb, square is an adjective)
2. She squared the object. (squared is the verb, with aspect as noted above)
3. The squared object is a rectangle. (squared is an adjective, with aspect likewise)
4. The rectangle was squared. (passive, squared is ambiguous to be either a verb or an adjective as we know was is a verb)

How do we know exactly that squared as used in #4 is meant the same as in #2 or #3? The sentence doesn't have enough exact semantics for clarity. The use of was in #4 may be similar to #1 and may be meant elsewise. Without a well-formed subject, the action or idea of the sentence is not clear in #4. (To say "the married John is not single" is odd in the use of the word "married.")

--- Mr. Ballard 22:29, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

1. Is John in a marriage?
2. Was John in a marriage?
3. Did John just marry someone?
4. Was John married by someone?

Of these four sentences, only the last contains a verb ("was married") in the passive voice. The rest ("is", "was", "did marry") are all active. This section is not only poorly written, it's of questionable relevance to the passive voice, and should be removed from the article. Akhilleus 04:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

original text from section

As indicated above, this was the most problematic part of the original text of this section:

In the clause John was married, the use of the verb was expects an adjective to describe John, so married is a technical ambiguity because it is not a simple adjective but a complex state, a noun (verb with tense) used as an adjective mistaken for a verb. The clause is easily questionable because the action is not clear, like: ...

Alternative auxiliary verb: get

I don't know how widespread this is, but I (an Australian) sometimes use 'to get' instead of 'to be' for the passive voice. "John got married ten years ago" tells you when his wedding was, rather than merely telling you his marital status a decade ago. "John was married ten years ago" is still ambiguous.

Clarity?

In the first example, it is not clear to someone unfamiliar with the term which of the clauses is actually the passive voice:

   * John is helped.
   * John was helped.

Perhaps this should be clearly identified?

Actually, BOTH of these are passive voice; the only difference is in tense. And they are SENTENCES, not simply CLAUSES. RJCraig 10:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Passive Voice in West Germanic Languages

I'm trying to compile a table with the corresponding passive voice verb forms in 4 different West Germanic languages, namely English, German, Dutch and Afrikaans (formerly known as South African Dutch). Could anyone please verify and complement the information below ?

English	German	Dutch	Afrikaans
is made	wird gemacht	wordt gemaakt	word gemaak
was made	wurde gemacht	werd gemaakt	is gemaak
has been made	ist gemacht worden	is gemaakt	is gemaak
had been made	war gemacht worden	was gemaakt	was gemaak
will be made	wird gemacht werden	zal gemaakt worden	sal gemaak word
would be made	würde gemacht	zou gemaakt worden	sou gemaak word
will have been made	??	zal gemaakt zijn	??
would have been made	wäre gemacht worden	zou gemaakt zijn	??

Note: For German, Dutch and English, only the 3rd person singular forms of the auxiliary verbs were shown.

I think the last three German verb forms are:

• würde machen (present conditional of future)
• werde gemacht haben (future perfect subjunctive of future perfect)
• würde gemacht haben (past conditional of future perfect)

I just knew that 501 German Verbs book would come in handy again someday! Laura1822 00:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization and Rewrite

It's time to get to work on this before someone comes along and slaps it with a poor quality tag (or whatever you call them).

I've made an a start in this direction; help would be appreciated (Akhilleus, you seem game; how 'bout it?). Either way, if there are no objections, I will continue to have at it. RJCraig 09:42, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

agent/patient, subject/object

There was some imprecision in the way this article talked about objects. It's helpful to distinguish between subject/object and agent/patient. The patient of a verb is the person or thing affected by the action of the verb. (There is a Wikipedia article on Patient (grammar), but it is currently not very helpful.)

In a clause with a verb in the active voice, the subject and agent of the verb are the same and the object and patient are also the same. For instance, in the sentence "John hits Mary", "John" is the subject of the verb "hits", and is also the agent of the verb "hits". "Mary" is the (direct) object of the verb hits, and is also its patient.

Now, transform this sentence into its passive equivalent: "Mary is hit by John." The subject of this sentence is "Mary"; however, she is not the agent of the verb; instead, she is the patient of "is hit"--she is the person affected by the action. In every clause with a verb in the passive voice, the subject of the verb is also its patient. Passive verbs do not take direct objects (except for ditransitive verbs).

If the agent is expressed, it is in a prepositional phrase ("by John" in the example in the previous paragraph). "By" is the most common preposition, but others are possible (e.g. "The state was freed through the actions of the brave general"). --Akhilleus (talk) 22:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Can I lift this explanation and put it in the article? Laura1822 16:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good explanation. There are many cases where the verb phrase doesn't take an agent, for example, where the subject is a recipient: "I got a haircut". It's simply not true to say there's a correspondance between syntactic functions (subject, direct object) and participant roles (agent, patient). While it says 'it's helpful to distinguish' between the two, it then goes on to say there's a direct relationship between them. There's not. This explanation confuses syntax and semantics. --Dom 02:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, in this explanation I was following Geoff Pullum: "In the passive voice, on the other hand, the semantics of the subject is assigned differently. The active voice, as in Mary wrote a letter, has the agent role associated with the syntactic subject (in this case Mary, denoting the person who did the writing). In the passive counterpart, A letter was written, the subject (a letter) is what would have otherwise been expressed as the direct object, had active voice been used."

Your example "I got a haircut" is an interesting one, but isn't it equivalent to "I obtained a haircut"? It still seems like "I" is the agent and subject in both sentences.

I can't see how to fully define the passive voice without talking about syntax and semantics together. But maybe there's something I'm missing, and I'd appreciate being corrected. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia sometimes frowns on using the passive voice

The Wikipedia Manual of Style says:

...it is still legitimate to write, "When we open our eyes, we see something", and it is certainly better than using the passive voice: "When the eyes are opened, something is seen."

And another Wikipedia style guide says:

Weasel words are often in the passive voice, which weakens the effectiveness of written prose.

And also on weasel words, the "Words to avoid" article suggests:

"As legend has it..." is often a screen for lazy research or bogus invented "legends" (some of which are harmless in intention). Unattributed passive voice is a slippery substitute for "legends": "X is thought to have..." This is a special case of[weasel words.

In discussing POV, an article on attribution says:

... to recast the sentence from the passive voice ... is better, because it avoids endorsing the interpretation.

- Pedant17 11:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Can I use these in the article, or is that considered too self-referential? Laura1822 16:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Those passages are such minute slices of the language, I wouldn't mention them in an article. Note that those examples are not necessarily all against the passive, e.g., the MoS example is talking about avoiding we and how in this case it's probably better just to use it than write something as awkward as "When the eyes are opened, something is seen." Jɪmp 21:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Tagging for cleanup

I am going to go ahead and tag this article for major cleanup (sorry RJCraig ;-) ) due to several reasons:

• It's confusing.
  • The examples don't seem to be clear.
• It isn't well organized.
• It doesn't have a true introduction paragraph.
• No Wikipedia article should start, "This article is about..."
• This talk page looks like it's been idle for several months.

Honestly, I came to this article to try to learn what passive voice was and ending up having to ask someone. They gave me the example:

Not passive voice: "The boy threw the ball." Passive voice: "The ball was thrown by the boy."

If this example is correct, could somebody please add it as the main example in the article due to the simplicity of this example?

--Voidxor 05:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right: that is the easiest way to identify most passive voice. It's incomplete, however; and it looks like the original text from which this article was taken is aimed at experts in linguistics rather than people who are unfamiliar with the concept. I will use your example and try writing something more explanatory. Laura1822 14:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Revision begun!

I started by expanding the introduction and the first section on Structure. Feel free to help me wikify it! Also to correct, expand, etc. I am a newbie so there are probably some deviations from proper Wikipedian style.

I have not yet removed any of the old text. I think it's fine to leave it in for the linguistically savvy who want to use the more precise terms and delve into it a bit more deeply. My goal was to try to explain the most common usage.

I will add more as I think of more, but don't let that stop you from adding! Laura1822 15:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

PV redirect

Currently, passive voice redirects to Grammatical Voice. Then there is a link within that article to this article, English passive voice. The English version of Wikipedia is in English; should these two titles be merged, or should passive voice redirect to English passive voice? Is that the sort of thing I can change unilaterally, or is it supposed to be discussed? Laura1822 20:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the redirect to English passive voice, which I believe is likely to be more responsive for most Wikipedia users. John M Baker (talk) 18:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The Marriage Question

Since the discussion above, someone has rewritten the part using "was married" as an example. Does this require any further substantive work?

Should the "got married" usage (which is common in America as well as Australia) be added? Or should "got" be added as an alternative to "be?" I can think of several other usages of "got" but they all seem to be informal substitutions for "was:" e.g., got tired, got annoyed, got frisky. I've never thought about "got" in this particular context; is it an accepted (non-academic) mainstream usage, or strictly colloquial? Laura1822 21:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

More revisions

I tried to address one of Voidxor's complaints above by adding an intro paragraph that more closely follows WP's style (see WP:LEAD). Unfortunately that means using possibly unfamiliar words like subject, agent and past participle right away, but it's really impossible to give a concise and proper definition without using grammatical terminology. Hopefully we can have a clearly written set of examples as the first major section to make things clear for those readers who didn't get enough help from the intro. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I had already added two introductory paragraphs specifically to address those complaints. Did I miss the point? Naturally I like my first two sentences better than yours :-) ---but then I have not reviewed WP:LEAD. Instead I tried deliberately NOT to use unintellible linguistics terminology at the very beginning, which is what I thought was giving Voidxor (and others) trouble. But because that is not the most precise definition, I left the confusing linguistics definition, tacked onto the end of another section. I now think you're right that it belongs in the intro, but disagree that it should be at the beginning. It is just too confusing and is particularly unhelpful and discouraging to laymen (which is why I removed from the intro). Audience is very important. Also, it seems to me that examples belong in another section, not the intro. I was concerned that the paragraphs I added made the intro too long, and think that with the examples, the intro is definitely too long. Just my thoughts-- thanks for your edits. We'll whip this article into shape eventually! Laura1822 16:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Before my edit the first sentence read: "The passive voice is a sentence construction in the English language." This is not a precise definition, and in addition it is incorrect: voice is an attribute of the verb, not the sentence. The intro didn't describe what the passive voice looks like in English, which really is the central matter of this article--the intro definitely needs to describe how the passive voice is constructed. So, we give a technical definition ("In English, the passive voice consists of a form of the verb "to be" plus the past participle of a transitive verb.") followed by an example for people who aren't familiar with the terminology.

I share your concern that some of the terminology is off-putting to people unfamiliar with grammar, but it's impossible to define grammatical concepts without using some of this terminology. Please note, however, that terms like "subject", "object", and "participle" are not really linguistic terminology--they're basic grammatical terms, and the only reason they're not widely known is because public schools barely teach any grammar any more. But calling them linguistic terminology is a bit like saying basic arithmetic is calculus. You want linguistic terminology, look at topic (linguistics), focus (linguistics), morphosyntactic alignment or ergative-absolutive language. Anyway, I agree that the terminology should be kept to a minimum, but if we don't use words like "subject" and "participle" we'll end up with vague and possibly incorrrect descriptions. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Passive voice (general, not English)

I am a linguist writing grammar articles on languages other than English. From this viewpoint, while it is fine that there should be an article in Wikipedia on the English passive voice, it is not satisfactory that "Passive voice" should redirect automatically to "English passive voice". That is not how most other grammatical terms in Wikipedia are organised. If you look up, say, "Peronal pronoun", you are not redirected to "English personal pronoun", and so on. So we need another article on "Passive voice" (in general). I just thought I'd point that out in case there is anyone there with time and ability to write it. --A R King 18:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should have an article about passive voice in general. For now, I changed the redirect at Passive voice to point to Grammatical voice, which gives a cross-linguistic treatment of the subject. szyslak (t, c, e) 23:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that probably goes a long way towards solving the problem, thanks. --A R King 06:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

passive and activ voice in English

1- simple. 2- continuous. 3- perfect. 4- perfect continuous. add to that 4 parts of the future : 1- future simple in the past or present conditional. 2- continuous future in the past or present continuous conditional. 3- perfect future in the past or past conditional. 4- perfect continuous in the past or past continuous conditonal. ......... I will put the general forms , these are the shorten words that I used in the forms: the first part betwwen (first part/) is for He, She, It. the second part betwwen (/second part) I, You, We, They. v~s = verb end by s like "He writes to them". v~ing = verb end by "ing" like "He is writting to them". v(P.P) = verp in past participle. v(base) = verb in base case.

---

1- Present simple: Affirmative subject + v(~s/base) + object. (active voice) object + (is/are) + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + (does/do) + not + v(base) + object. (active voice) object + (is/are) + not + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative (does/do) + subject + v(base) + object ? (active voice) (is/are) + object + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

2- Present continuous: Affirmative subject + (is/are) + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + (is/are) + being + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject (is/are) + not + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + (is/are) + not + being + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice Interrogative (is/are) + subject + v~ing + object ? (active voice) (is/are)+ object being + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

3- Present perfect: Affirmative subject + (has/have) + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + (has/have) + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + (has/have) + not + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + (has/have) + not + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative (has/have) + subject + v(P.P) + object ? (active voice) (has/have) + object + been + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

4- Present perfect continuous: Affirmative subject + (has/have) + been + v~ing + object. (active voice)

1. 1. 1. ..............I don't konw, pleas write it ................### . (passive voice)

Negative subject + (has/have) + not + been + v~ing + object. (active voice)

1. 1. 1. .............I don't konw, pleas write it ................### . (passive voice)

Interrogative (has/have) + subject + been + v~ing + object ? (active voice)

1. 1. 1. .............I don't konw, pleas write it ...............### ? (passive voice)

5- Past simple: Affirmative subject + v(p) + object. (active voice) object + (was/were) + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + did + not + v(base) + object. (active vice) object + (was/were) + not + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative did + subject + v(base) + object ? (active voice) (was/were) + object + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

6- Past continuous: Affrmative subject (was/were) + v~ing +object. (active voice) object + (was/were) + being + v(P.P) +by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + (was/were) + not + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + (was/were) + not + being + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative (was/were) + subject +v~ing + object ? (active voice) (was/were) + object + being + v(P.P) by subject ? (passive voice)

7- Past perfect: Affirmative subject + had + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + had + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + had + not + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + had + not + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative had + subject + v(P.P) + object ? (active voice) had + object + been + v(P.P) ? (passive voice)

8- Past perfect cotinuous: Affirmative subject + had + been + v~ing +object. (active voice)

1. 1. 1. .............I don't konw, pleas write it ...............### ? (passive voice)

Negative suject + had + not + been + v~ing + object. (active voice)

1. 1. 1. .............I don't konw, pleas write it ...............### ? (passive voice)

Interrogative had + subject + been + v~ing + object. (active voice)

1. 1. 1. .............I don't konw, pleas write it ...............### ? (passive voice)

9- Future simple: Affirmative subject + will + v(base) + object. (active voice) object + will + be + v(P.P) + by + subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + will + not + v(base) + object. (active voice) object +will + not + be + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative will + suject + v(base) + object ? (active voice) will + object + be + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

10- Future continuous: Affirmative subjec + will + be + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + will + be + being + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + will + not + be + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + will + not + be + being + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative will + subject + be + v~ing + object ?(active voice) will + object + be + being + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

11- Future perfect: Affirmative subject + will + have + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + will + be + have + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + will + not + have + v(P.P) + object. (active voice) object + will + not + be + have + v(P.P) + by suject. (passive voice) Interrogative will + sbject + have + v(P.P) + object ? (active voice) will + object + be+ have + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

12- Future perfect continuous Affirmative subject + will + have + been + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + will + have + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Negative subject + will + not + have + been + v~ing + object. (active voice) object + will + not + have + been + v(P.P) + by subject. (passive voice) Interrogative will + subject + have + been + v~ing + object ? (active voice) will + object + have + been + v(P.P) + by subject ? (passive voice)

---

The four other kinds of future; I do't know about its certain forms 1- future simple in the past or present conditional. 2- continuous future in the past or present continuous conditional. 3- perfect future in the past or past conditional. 4- perfect continuous in the past or past continuous conditonal.

New edits

The new edits by Ruakh are a big improvement, I think, especially since we now have more technical explanations of the different types of passive. However, I'm unhappy with presenting the passive as a transformation of the active voice--saying "In English as in many other languages, the passive voice is the form of a transitive verb in which its object (typically a patient) has been promoted to the subject position" implies that the verb is naturally active, and that the subject of a passive verb is naturally an object.

I favor an older version of the lead sentence (which I wrote, so obviously I'm biased), which read: "The passive voice is a form of the verb used when the subject receives the action of the verb, in contrast to the active voice, where the subject performs the action of the verb." In general, if you look at books like the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar their definition of the passive will be close to this.

To be clear, the article needs examples of transforming actives into passives and vice versa, because this is a useful illustration of the differences between the two voices, and suggestive of how one might wish to rephrase a passive, if one were inclined to do such a thing. I just don't think that the beginning sentence should present the passive as a transformation. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not really about "actions". In the sentence I have a new car, there is no action being performed at all, yet the roles of I and new car as subject and object remain the same. Strad 17:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not really a good example, as ?"A new car is had by me" is very questionable. Generally have can only be passivized when it does refer to an action or event — "A good time was had by all", "He was quite a con artist; we were all had", and so on. Indeed, I'm not sure there is a good example; while the active voice is essentially the unmarked voice and can be used for pretty much anything, it seems to me that the passive voice mostly only works when there really is an action or event.

For reference, here are some selected quotes from the OED. First, from the definition of ACTIVE a.:

3. Grammar. a. properly, An epithet of Voice in verbs used transitively; opposed to Passive (and, in some languages, to Reflexive or Middle). That form of the verb in which the action asserted by it is viewed as a characteristic or attribute of the thing whence it issues, as opposed to the Passive Voice in which the action is viewed as an attribute of the thing towards which it is directed; or, that form of the verb in which the logical subject of the action is made by the speaker the grammatical subject of his assertion, as shown by the verb's agreement with it in inflections, by position, or otherwise. This being (in Aryan Languages) the simple or original form, verbs used intransitively naturally have no other, and are said to have the Active Voice only.

b. Less correctly, said of verbs themselves; in two senses. 1. Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else, as distinguished from Passive Verbs, or such as assert of the subject that it is acted on by something or suffers the action, and Neuter Verbs which assert an action or state that has neither character. 2. Applied to all verbs that assert action as distinct from mere existence or state; in this sense Active Verbs are divided into Active Transitive, in which the action passes over to or affects an object, as kill (corresponding to the Active of 1), and Active Intransitive, in which the action does not affect an object, as rise (forming part of the Neuter verbs of 1), Neuter in this nomenclature being restricted to verbs of existence or state, as be, sit.

Both of these uses of the word are etymologically defensible, but both are inconvenient: the distinction between action and state is not always clear, and above all is one of things, not of assertions about them; that of action and passion is merely that of two ways of viewing and asserting the same action; while the passing over of an action to an object or the contrary is better expressed by Transitive and Intransitive, and is moreover not a division of verbs, but of the constructions of each verb separately, the great majority of verbs in Eng. having both constructions.

And from the definition of PASSIVE a.:

I. […] 3. Grammar. Denoting, relating to, or using a voice of a transitive verb in which the subject undergoes the action of the verb. Cf. ACTIVE a. 3.

In English, the passive voice usually consists of an auxiliary (freq. be; occas. also get, become, etc.) plus the past participle of the verb; comparable formations are found in other modern European languages.

In passive constructions, the word which would logically be the object under a corresponding active construction functions as the grammatical subject, while the logical subject either is absent or is represented in a prepositional phrase (e.g. the food was eaten or the food was eaten by them rather than they ate the food).

Ruakh 18:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Use to maintain better information flow

The article says:

In related cases, the passive may be used to mainitain better "old/new information flow:" i.e., if the patient is known from previous context, but the agent (etc.) is new information. Compare the following:

Another highly valuable precious metal is gold. In prehistoric times, people first discovered this metal. (active voice)

Another highly valuable precious metal is gold. This metal was first discovered in prehistoric times. (passive voice)

But someone has arbitrarily placed the phrase in prehistoric times at the front of the first sentence exaggerating the effect. It is just as valid to do this in the passive sentence. This makes the example a poor one. Anyway, it could equally read:

Gold is another highly valuable precious metal. People first discovered gold in prehistoric times. (active voice)

But then it reads quite well. Could someone please come up with a better example? Sorry, I can't think of one150.203.177.218 05:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Confusing

This article seems confusing to me - especially the first sentence of the first non-intro section. To sum it up (this is also for my own clarification) - is passive voice when the verb is in present tense and an extra word is required (such as 'was') to create past tense? Also the criticisms section seems to have both criticisms and praise - the title should be renamed.--Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 22:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Daniel, the passive can be any number of tenses. It will always have a past participle, and a form of "to be" as an auxiliary verb. Here are some examples:

I am loved by the people. (Present passive)

I was accused of a crime (simple past, passive)

He has been called the best actor of his generation. (past perfect, passive)

The book will be read by everyone who cares about the truth (future passive)

Note that not all uses of auxiliary verbs create a passive:

I am going to the store (present progressive, active voice)

The professor was teaching a class on English grammar. (past progressive, active voice)

My father will fly to Toledo next week. (future tense, active voice)

--Akhilleus (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh nice I think I got it - so the passive voice involves using verbs to relate the direct object to the indirect object (the book (indirect - i think) will be read by the people (direct)) and the active voice involves using verbs to relate the dirrect object to the indirect (The people will read the book) - something like that?Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 04:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. In "the people will read the book", "the people" is the subject, and "the book" is the direct object. In its passive counterpart "the book will be read by the people", "the book" has been promoted to the subject position, and "the people" has been placed in an optional complement; you can even just say "the book will be read". —Ruakh_TALK 06:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Haha, thanks I got it - got confused subject/direct/indirect object.Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 16:05, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that your example of past perfect tense is actually present perfect. SharkD (talk) 01:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms

I have been thinking about this. In exactly what way is it meaningful to include, in an encyclopaedia article, 'criticisms' of a grammatical voice? Now, I understand full well the postmodern attitude that everything is open to criticism, but surely it is the use of the passive voice which is being criticised by Strunk, White and their ilk? And hence, surely, such criticism belongs more properly in an article on English style, than in the article on the grammatical voice itself? If someone decides he doesn't like nouns, because they can be difficult to understand and tend to focus a sentence on objects not actions, and writes a book about that, would it be meaningful to include a 'criticism' section in the article on nouns? Surely not. So why do we have a criticism section here? Rosenkreuz 12:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes a neutral point of view, which means that it gives air-time to major viewpoints. A single book doesn't make a viewpoint major; but if many, many English speakers thought nouns were a bad thing, a thing to avoid (or at least, to avoid overusing), then yes, I think it would be important for English nouns, if it existed, to mention that. Now, does the widespread belief that the passive voice is evil warrant such a large "criticisms" section? Probably not; indeed, I think we might scrape by with a single, two-to-three-sentence paragraph. But I don't think we can in good faith leave out the criticisms section altogether. —Ruakh_TALK 16:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The point isn't how many people have a fetish about the passive voice. The point is the extent to which it is appropriate, and meaningful, to include a 'criticism' of a grammatical voice, or whether such a thing might represent a category mistake. Strunk and White did not 'criticise' the passive voice; they said that abuse of it in one's writing constitutes poor style. Thus their prescription, which I acknowledge is adhered to by many, for better or worse, and hence has a place on the encyclopaedia, belongs not in the article on the voice but in the article on style. Rosenkreuz 19:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's useful to have a section on the usage of the passive voice here, including opinions about its abuse. I think changing the title of that section from "Criticisms" to something else would be good, though. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

mistake?: They talked about the problem

The example "They talked about the problem. → The problem was talked about." appears to be wrong. The example given does not maintain the original meaning.
It should be "→ The problem was talked about by them." Pog 19:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

That very topic is discussed at #Canonical passives; and most of the examples in the article omit the by phrase, for the simple reason that most examples in real life omit it. —Ruakh_TALK 19:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Usage and style?

To me, this section is very opinionated and does not show the other side of the argument. I propose that we either alter it or remove it.

Also, I would not really classify what is under this heading as "Usage and style." It is more of an opposing viewpoints kind of thing.

~Holly —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hplover09 (talk • contribs) 23:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The declarative tense in the passive voice

Friends,

This just occurred to me, and I would like some feedback on it. Consider the declarative tense (I do run, I did run, etc.)--I don't know if it's properly called a tense as I've seen it called other things as well, but we'll forget about that for now.

There is a section on the use of "got," saying that it is colloquial and informal, but you'll note that the only way in modern English to form the passive declarative is with "do get" or "did get." I don't think anyone would think twice about hearing, "Was the man actually hit." "Yes, he did get by the car" in a news report. However, we clearly would reject "Yes, he did be hit by the car."

So, after a quick Google search, I could not find anything addressing this use of the passive voice (it has to be somewhere, right?). How should this be addressed in the article?

Thanks.

Also, does anyone happen to know the best way to find other Wikipedians who have insane expertise with grammar? I should like to put this one by such a person, and see what he or she thinks.

Nik-renshaw (talk) 18:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Is the bit about the Elements of Style a bit of a needless fling?

The part about the critics of the passive voice using it themselves kind of falsely implies hypocrisy on their part, doesn't it? I wasn't under the impression that most "passive-voice critics" suggested it was -never- appropriate, just very susceptible to overuse and poor use. I don't doubt that there -are- absolutist critics who think it should never be used, but that's not a very relevant group to talk about. It seems to me that the point could be best made by saying that its overuse is criticized, but that it isn't a stylistic blight in all circumstances.

The paragraph on the whole makes the critics of passive voice overuse sound unreasonable, wheras in my experience at least undergraduate papers are still plagued by the phenomenon they're criticizing. 129.173.208.220 (talk) 16:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a fair point, but to be honest, in general this claim is a little weak; see e.g. <http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.html>. I think I'd be hard-pressed to find a construction that isn't sometimes overused, and I'm not at all sure that the passive voice should be high on the list. I think the real issue is that usage guides are fairly useless — they tell you (for example) not to overuse the passive voice, but don't help you know when you're overusing it — but now I'm getting well outside the scope of this article. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 01:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Word to blame for deprecation of passive voice?

It occurs to me that many people today must base their sense of good grammar on the green lines that flash up on Microsoft Word. Word hates the passive voice, telling the user that the sentence will be more effective if it is avoided. It's rather like 'The ball, which John threw' and 'The ball that John threw', when 'The ball which John threw' is also perfectly good, if not better. I find 'which' used daily in this way in academic writing, but Word tells me that it's wrong. I think Word is the same on the passive voice: wrong. But I'd be interested to know whether Word has ever been blamed, except by me, for the standardization of poor English.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 10:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I think MS Word's ding-blasted grammar checker is a symptom rather than a cause. But I don't think there has been any serious writing on the subject, so it's original research either way. — Gwalla | Talk 21:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I think there was a discussion of Word's role on Language Log, though it might have been just a passing mention. Although Language Log is just a blog (and not a peer-reviewed publication), it is written by professional linguists and we have some other cites to it now. John M Baker (talk) 22:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Passive has nothing to do with thematic roles

I propose removing the explanation of passive in terms of thematic roles. In particular, the intro claims that the passive form of a transitive verb has a PATIENT as subject. This is simply not true, as shown below:

• [CAUSE/STIMULUS Mary] was liked by [EXPERIENCER/PATIENT John]
• [AGENT John] was expected to leave at 3:00pm.
• [GOAL Mary] was given the book by John.

The intro also claims that the object of passives is the AGENT. Again, not true:

• The door was shut by [CAUSE the wind].

In general, passive is a syntactic phenomenon, not semantic. Anyone object to rewriting this part? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Gerber (talk • contribs) 01:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Japanese or Icelandic passive voice

Where should explanations and examples of the Japanese or Icelandic or any other language be put? I should fancy it weird that passive voice redirects here. --BiT (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Until an article dedicated to the passive appears, they should go in grammatical voice. Passive voice now redirects there as well. Ergative rlt (talk) 00:56, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Periphrastic?

The intro states: "English's passive voice is periphrastic; that is, it does not have a one-word form." But this appears to be contradicted by the later Past participle alone section. Should that sentence be deleted from the intro? John M Baker (talk) 18:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It should be modified. There's a difference between a lone participle and a verb phrase with a participle and a conjugated form of "to be" (or "got"). It's important to say that passive verbs in English are periphrastic ("He is loved") vs. some languages where the passive isn't periphrastic, e.g. Latin amatur ("he is loved"). --Akhilleus (talk) 18:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Could you make an appropriate modification? John M Baker (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I made a change, but it didn't seem necessary to mention the past participle alone in the lead. Feel free to modify further if you disagree. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I think that's right. I edited the Past participle alone section to clarify its usage.

I'm a little worried that our first paragraph is still too technical for the uninformed reader who just wants to know what the passive voice is. That was why I put "periphrastic" later in the paragraph in my edit. While your edit is probably an improvement, is there some way we can make this intro easier for the novice? John M Baker (talk) 20:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Become with passive

Authorities differ on how to treat apparently passive constructions with become as the auxiliary verb, such as "The shoe became untied." It seems to me that Pullum's flat statement that become cannot be used with a following passive should not be given without further explanation (which I don't feel prepared to give). Nor is it really needed; whether become can sometimes be a passive auxiliary or not, it does not serve that function in the Strunk & White example. Also, I don't like using such an extended quotation, which perhaps we should paraphrase anyway.

I did remove the statement in the intro that become is sometimes a passive auxiliary; the uncited source for that was the OED. It would be desirable to reconcile the views of the OED and Pullum, if someone feels capable of doing it. John M Baker (talk) 01:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, this sounds reasonable. — Gwalla | Talk 05:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Most famous advocacy of active over passive

"The active voice is the dominant voice in English, and many commentators, most famously George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language," have urged that the use of the passive voice should be minimized." (my bold)
-- I rather think that the most famous advocacy of the active over the passive is that in The Elements of Style (aka Strunk & White)
- http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html -- http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm -- http://www.dailywritingtips.com/taking-another-look-at-strunk-and-white/ .
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 22:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Edited in response to this comment. John M Baker (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of the usage section

I've reverted edits that came with the explanation "The purpose of this section is not to provide usage advice or to use intuitive but inaccurate descriptions like '"doer of the action.'" Actually, the original text was well-supported by citations to usage manuals, and the particular words "doer of the action" are directly from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, which linguists consider the best usage guide. The edited language did not cite any support for its assertions.

More broadly, even if the replacement language did have good support, I don't think it would be as good for this section. I recognize that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, but in a section on English usage, I think the text should explain its meaning in a way that will be understood by someone to whom it is a new subject. Statements such as "the passive voice is used to place focus on the grammatical patient, rather than the agent," can be understood only by someone who is already knowledgeable about the subject. That statement is also less specific than the text it replaced. John M Baker (talk) 06:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 19:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

---

English passive voice → passive voice —The prefacing of the name with "English" is an unnecessary disambiguation and should be avoided (IAW WP:DAB).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 17:09, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article focuses on the passive voice in English, as should be clear from even a casual reading of the lead. An article that didn't limit itself to English would be quite different--it wouldn't focus quite so much on whether or not it's a good idea to avoid using the passive voice, for example. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
• And a discussion of the passive voice in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit would mention its special inflexions, and the middle voice/deponent verbs which have the form of the passive and active meaning. A dab page, even if most of the links are section links, seems called for. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose' Since this article is only concerned with the English language, not other languages. I would suggest the creation of another page called "Passive voice" which discusses the topic more widely. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 19:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I would be right there with all of the above, except for one thing: there are no other "passive voice" topics, and I'm not sure that there can be. There is a smidgen of content in the current article that deals with the concept of "passive voice" in other languages (which seems forced, to me), but I've never seen anything to suggest that the concept of "passive voice" is normally used outside of English (I'm certainly willing to be proven incorrect in that, however). The point being, until and unless there is a real and concrete need to disambiguate the current title, I see no reason not to reverse the current Passive voice → English passive voice relationship. Once a (for example) French passive voice article exists then a dab page could and should be created, but until then I think this page should be at Passive voice.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

  First of all, the passive voice exists in every language I'm familiar with, and I would be surprised if it didn't exist in any natural language. We don't have articles such as Latin passive voice, French passive voice, but such articles are at least thinkable. It's also possible that there could be a passive voice article that covered the concept of the passive voice across human language, but all that's really needed is a section in grammatical voice--and I see now there is no general section on the passive there, that's bad. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

  You could be (and likely are) correct, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't know about the actual topic (which is what brought me to the article in the first place). All of that is fairly irrelevent however, as the simple fact is that there are not any other passive voice articles in Wikipedia. Even in this conversation here, where everyone seems dead set on continuing to impose an unnecessary disambiguator on this article, everyone still refers to the article as simply "passive voice".
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 08:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

  The first section in grammatical voice is Grammatical voice#The passive voice in English, and the article cites only one reference: a book on Mandarin Chinese— that wiki page is so impressive it could easily be a Featured Article right now! Clearly other languages are not notable enough even for a section there, let alone a separate article on the topic.</sarcasm> Pcap ping 09:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

  By the way, in Kroeger's book the passive voice isn't even listed under some "voice (grammar)" chapter, but in a valence-changing morphology chapter. Clearly a non-notable topic in itself [1], [2], [3]. Yeehaa! Pcap ping 09:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose promotion of WP:Systematic bias is a bad idea. 76.66.197.30 (talk) 03:53, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

  "Systematic bias" wha? What an odd statement... how's the finish on that blade that you're obviously grinding?
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 08:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. The book I've recently used as source in this article, Paul Kroeger's Analyzing grammar, treats passive voice in languages in general, with examples from Japanese, Malayam, and what not, besides English. So the topic passive voice clearly is notable independently of the English one. Just because there no knowledgeable editors here to write about it (right now), it does not mean it should not exist, or that the English topic should replace it. Pcap ping 09:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose move, and support creation of an independent article Passive voice instead of letting that redirect here. In the meantime, I'm letting it redirect to Voice (grammar), which is the same place Active voice redirects to. +Angr 10:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose moving this page, since it deals specifically with English, and support creation of Passive voice, per Angr. Passive is one of the three most common voices in the world's languages; it is not specific to English. Cnilep (talk) 22:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Should "Advice against the passive voice" really be the first section?

Appears rather unencyclopaedic and POV when placed first. Most articles on X do not start with a "Criticism of X" section... Pcap ping 14:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Most readers will come to this page because they have heard that the passive voice should be avoided, so I do think that Usage and style should be the first section of the article. Within that section, however, perhaps Advice against the passive voice should not be the first subsection. John M Baker (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the whole thing should be moved further down. Surely the article should describe what the passive voice actually is before going into discussions of its use. Strad (talk) 22:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

But there's already an explanation of what passive voice is, in the intro. And the large majority of discussions of the passive voice address primarily usage. John M Baker (talk) 04:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that 'Usage and style' should be moved down to the second section. This has two advantages: describing what passive voice is before discussing whether or when it should be used, and moving the slightly controversial stylistic discussion next to the slightly more controversial discussion of misuse of the term. Cnilep (talk) 15:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Direct/indirect objects

This page includes the following examples:

• John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book.
• 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.

(etc.)

User:Ergative rlt argued that Mary is actually the direct object in that sentence, and so changed the example to the following:

• John gave a book to Mary. → Mary was given a book.
• John gave a book to Mary. → Mary was given a book by John.

In the active form, gave is the verb; John is its subject, a book its direct object, and Mary its indirect object.

According to McArthur (1992), "With verbs that can have two objects, the indirect object generally refers to the recipient of what is denoted by the direct object. In I sent my bank a letter, my bank is the indirect object, a letter is the direct object. In the equivalent I sent a letter to my bank, some grammarians regard to my bank as also an indirect object" (p. 720). Thus per McArthur, the original example was correct, and many (but perhaps not all) grammarians also consider Ergative's example correct. I have restored the original example. Cnilep (talk) 16:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

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