English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009
14 The Passive
Part 3 Sentences
In most sentences, the subject of the sentence is also the agent or performer of the action of the verb. For example, consider the following sentence:
Mary answered the phone.
The subject, Mary, is also the agent, the person who performs the action of answering the phone.
Sometimes, however, we want to use sentences in which the subject is not the agent. For example, consider the following sentence:
Mary was promoted last week.
Mary is still the nominal subject (the verb was is in the third-person singular to agree with the singular noun Mary), but Mary is not the agent. In other words, Mary is not the person doing the promoting. Instead, she is the recipient of the action of the verb promote. She did not promote anyone; somebody promoted her. Accordingly, the sentence is a passive sentence.
Passive sentences in English have a unique grammatical structure: they must contain what we will call the passive helping verb be. There are actually two different helping verbs that use be in some form: one that is used to form the progressive, and one that is used to form the passive. How can we tell them apart? The answer is by looking at the form of the verb that immediately follows the helping verb be. Compare the following sentences:
As you can see,
be + present participle = progressive
be + past participle = passive
A sentence can even be both progressive and passive so long as it meets the requirements: be + present participle (Pres Part) for the progressive and be + past participle (Past Part) for the passive. Here is an example of a sentence with both:
The job is being contracted out to a firm in Singapore.
be + Pres Part be + Past Part
In order to have both a progressive and a passive, the sentence must contain two different be’s: one for the progressive, and one for the passive. What is tricky is that the verb being plays a role in both constructions: it is the present perfect tense form that is required for the progressive, and it is also the helping verb for the passive.
Only sentences that contain the sequence be + a past participle verb are passive. All other sentences are called active sentences. That is, by default, sentences that do not contain the sequence of be + a past participle are automatically classified as active.
Here are some examples of passive sentences with the helping verb be and the past participle in bold. Note that the passive helping verb can be used in combination with other helping verbs (in italics), sometimes producing rather long and complicated verb sequences:
The movie was filmed in Spain.
I was reminded that we have to go to Chicago tomorrow.
The contract will be signed Tuesday.
Your car has been parked on the lower level.
The meeting should have been finished by now.
The accident is being reported to the insurance company.
Exercise 14.1
Write active or passive above the verbs in the following sentences as appropriate. If the sentence is passive, confirm your answer by underlining the verb be and the past participle.
1. Mrs. Johnston was appointed to the district court.
2. The present was wrapped in bright red paper.
3. Finally, the mystery has been solved!
4. John has retired from his position at the university.
5. The remodeling is costing us a fortune.
6. Your salary will be adjusted to reflect the higher cost of living in Tokyo.
7. The gate is always locked at 6 p.m.
8. The company’s success has been noticed by the financial press.
9. My car was previously owned by a reckless teenager.
10. The operation has just emerged from bankruptcy.
11. Senator Blather was elected in 1996.
12. The alarm was first sounded by a security guard in the early morning.
13. I should have listened more carefully.
14. The product should have been recalled earlier.
15. The play is being directed by Joan Ridgeway.
Virtually every passive sentence has an active sentence counterpart. In order to use a passive sentence effectively, we need to be able compare the passive and active forms of the same sentence to see which version best suits our purpose. To make this comparison, we need to understand how to convert a passive sentence into its counterpart active form, and vice versa, how to convert an active sentence into its counterpart passive form. Unfortunately this conversion back and forth between the active and passive forms is one of the most complicated operations in English grammar.
Let us begin by looking closely at how we change the active sentence “John saw Mary” into its passive counterpart, “Mary was seen by John.” The first and most important step is to insert the passive auxiliary verb be immediately in front of the main verb in the active sentence. Adding the passive auxiliary verb be automatically triggers the following changes in verb forms: the original tense of the main verb passes over to be, and the main verb changes to its past participle form.
John saw Mary. → John was seen Mary.
The next two steps are both complicated and unique to the passive. The subject in the active sentence is turned into a prepositional phrase beginning with by:
John was seen Mary. → by John was seen Mary.
Then this new prepositional phrase switches place with the original object:
by John was seen Mary. → Mary was seen by John.
The most important thing to understand about the process that converts the active to the passive is that it does not change the meaning of the sentence. The passive means exactly the same thing as the original active. The purpose of the shift from active to passive is to change the focus or emphasis of the sentence. In the active form of the sentence, the focus is on what the subject does. In the passive form of the sentence, the focus is on what happens to the object. In our example, the active version of the sentence tells us what John did (he saw Mary). The passive version of the sentence tells us what happened to Mary (she was seen by John).
Here are some more examples of the three-step process of changing an active sentence to its passive counterpart:
Active: Kathy postponed the meeting.
Insert passive auxiliary: Kathy was postponed the meeting.
Insert by: by Kathy was postponed the meeting.
Switch subject and object: The meeting was postponed by Kathy.
Active: The joke amused the audience.
Insert passive auxiliary: The joke was amused the audience.
Insert by: by the joke was amused the audience.
Switch subjects and objects: The audience was amused by the joke.
Active: The Senator denies all charges.
Insert passive auxiliary: The Senator is denied all charges.
Insert by: by the Senator is denied all charges.
Switch subjects and objects: All charges are denied by the Senator.
Did you notice that we had to make one final adjustment when we switched the subject and object in the last example? When the old object in the active sentence became the new subject in the passive sentence, we had to adjust the form of the verb be to agree with the number of the new subject since it was different from the number of the old subject. That is, we had to change is denied to are denied to agree with the new plural subject all charges rather than the old singular subject the Senator.
Exercise 14.2
Use the three-step process shown previously to convert the following active sentences into their passive sentence counterparts.
McGraw-Hill published the books.
Insert passive auxiliary: McGraw-Hill was published the books.
Insert by: by McGraw-Hill was published the books.
Switch subjects and objects: The books were published by McGraw-Hill.
1. Janet answered my questions.
2. The press office issued a statement.
3. Everybody supported the proposal.
4. A visitor taught my economics class today.
5. What happened proved my point.
6. Somebody made a big mistake.
7. Our law firm represents the union.
8. Many companies use our software programs.
9. The new process obtains much better results.
10. The government recognizes the problem.
Fortunately, adding the passive auxiliary to other sentences with other helping or auxiliary verbs is not at all difficult because the passive auxiliary is always added at the end of any sequence just in front of the main verb so that adding the passive auxiliary does not cause changes in any of the other auxiliary or helping verbs. Here are some examples:
Perfect
Active: Mary has seen John.
Passive: John has been seen by Mary.
Active: The rug had covered most of the floor.
Passive: Most of the floor had been covered by the rug.
Progressive
Active: Mary is seeing John.
Passive: John is being seen by Mary.
Active: Ralph was offering me the job.
Passive: I was being offered the job by Ralph.
Modal auxiliary
Active: Mary might see John.
Passive: John might be seen by Mary.
Active: They will pay the bill.
Passive: The bill will be paid by them.
As you can see from the preceding examples, the forms of be and the main verb are completely predictable: the passive auxiliary be always takes on whatever tense the main verb originally was: if the main verb was in the past tense, be is in the past tense; if the main verb was in the progressive, be is in the progressive, and so on. The main verb then always changes to its past participle form.
Exercise 14.3
Use the three-step process to convert the following active sentences into their passive sentence counterparts.
My parents are watching the kids.
Insert passive auxiliary: My parents are being watched the kids.
Insert by: by my parents are being watched the kids.
Switch subjects and objects: The kids are being watched by my parents.
1. The waiter is calculating the bill.
2. The police will solve the crime.
3. The merchants were displaying summer clothing.
4. The mosquitoes might bother you this time of year.
5. Everybody had accepted his offer.
6. We are hiring some new employees.
7. The union could have sued the company.
8. The secretary had delayed the merger.
9. Jackson should have seen them.
10. They are talking about what happened.
Going from the passive to the active is relatively easy. A quick way to do it is to move the noun phrase inside the by prepositional phrase to the subject position and turn the main verb (the last verb in the chain of verbs) into a simple present or past tense and then use the subject of the passive sentence as the object. Here is an example:
Passive: The motion was made by Mr. Brown.
Active: Mr. Brown made the motion.
With a little practice, it is relatively easy to change a passive sentence back to its active counterpart in your head. See how quickly you can do the following exercise in your head, without using pen or pencil to work it out.
Exercise 14.4
Without working though the process step-by-step, see how fast you can convert the following passive sentences to their active forms.
The manuscript was examined by an expert from the university.
An expert from the university examined the manuscript.
1. Alice was discouraged by the weak response to the ads.
2. The estate was evaluated by a professional appraiser.
3. Smoke was detected by a sensor in the lab.
4. The hotel room had been cleaned by the maid.
5. A new hearing was requested by the defendant’s lawyer.
6. The carpet had been badly faded by the sun.
7. The material had been snagged by a splinter.
8. A new plan was being developed by Roberta.
9. The entire project has been coordinated by a special task force.
10. The idea was critiqued by the entire staff.
11. The clock was wound up by my grandfather once a week.
12. The rocks were lifted onto the truck by a loader.
13. The rocket had been launched by a team from NASA.
14. Unfortunately, the house had been badly neglected by the previous owners.
15. The pool is being cleaned by a neighbor’s son.