Passive voice

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Passive voice is a grammatical voice common in many languages. In a passive voice clause, the grammatical subject expresses the theme or the patient of the main verb - that is, the person or thing experiencing the action or changing its condition. This contrasts with the active voice, in which the subject has an agent role. For example, in the passive phrase "The tree is pulled down", the subject ( tree ) shows the patient rather than the action agent. Instead, the phrase "Someone pulls that tree" and "Tree down" is an active sentence.

Usually, in passive clauses, what is usually expressed by the object (or sometimes other arguments) of the verb is now expressed by the subject, while what is normally expressed by the subject is removed, or indicated by some additions to the clause. Thus, turning the active verb into a passive verb is a process of valence degradation ("detransitivizing process"), because it transforms a transitive verb into an intransitive verb. This is not always the case; for example in Japanese the passive-sound construction does not always lower the valence.

Many languages ​​have an active and passive voice; this allows greater flexibility in sentence construction, either as a semantic agent or the patient can take the subject's syntactic role. The use of a passive voice allows the speaker to adjust the expanse of the discourse by placing a figure other than the agent in the subject position. This can be done to center patients, recipients, or other thematic roles; may also be useful when semantic patients are a topic of ongoing discussion. Passive sounds can also be used to avoid determining the agent of an action.

Video Passive voice

Passive tag

Different languages ​​use different grammatical forms to indicate passive voice.

In some languages, the passive voice is indicated by the conjugation of verbs, the specific forms of the verb. Examples of languages ​​that conjugate sounds include Latin and North German like Sweden.

In Latin, passive sentence agents (if indicated) are declared using nouns in ablative cases, in this case serv? (ablative servus ). Different languages ​​use different methods to express agents in passive clauses. In Sweden, agents may be expressed using prepositional phrases with the preposition av (equivalent here for English "by").

Austronesian language Kimaragang Dusun also shows passive voices with conjugated verbs using infix, -in - .

Other languages, including English, express passive sound periphrastically, using additional verbs.

In English

English, like some other languages, uses passive periphrastic. Instead of conjugating directly to voice, English uses the past verb form of verbs plus auxiliary verbs, either being or get (called connecting verbs in traditional grammar) , to indicate passive voice.

• Money donated to school.
• The is broken during the battle.
• All men are made equal .

If an agent is mentioned, it usually appears in the prepositional phrase introduced by the by frontal.

• No agency: The paper is marked.
• With agent: Paper marked by Mr. Tan .

The subject of the passive voice usually corresponds to the direct object of the formulation of related sounds (as in the example above), but English also allows passive construction in which the subject corresponds to an indirect object or supplementary preposition:

• We are given tickets. (Subject we match the indirect object give )
• The team operated on yesterday. (Subject Team corresponds to supplementary preposition on )

In sentences of the second type, abandoned prepositions are left behind. This is called prepositional passive or pseudo-passive (though the latter term may also be used with other meanings).

The active sound is the dominant voice used in English. Many commentators, especially George Orwell in his essay "Politics and English" and Strunk & amp; White in the Style Element , it has been urgent to minimize the use of passive voice, but it is almost always based on the misconceptions of these commentators about what a passive voice is. What they want to criticize are sentences that are content and style weak and "passive" in a figurative sense, but often have verbs in an active voice. In addition, many of these commentators naively use the passive voice itself in criticizing what is actually a verb with verbs in an active voice, in which they indicate that they are not always following their own recommendations. Contrary to the false general critical claims about passive voice, it has important uses, and almost all writers use passive voice, including Orwell and Strunk & amp; White itself. They even use it more often than usual in prose writing in general. (In Orwell's case, more than 50% more often than the example with the highest usage in the study cited below.) There is general agreement that passive voice is useful for emphasis, or when the recipient of action is more important than the actor.

Merriam-Webster's English Dictionary of Use refers to three passive versus active statistics studies in various magazines, stating: "the highest incidence of passive construction is 13 percent." Orwell runs to slightly above 20 percent in "Politics and English. "Obviously he found construction useful though his advice to avoid it as much as possible".

Maps Passive voice

Define "passive"

In the field of linguistics, the term passive is applied to various grammatical structures. Therefore, linguists find it difficult to define the term in a way that makes sense in all human languages. Passive canonical in European languages ​​has the following properties:

1. Subject is not an agent.
2. There is a change in the order of words or nominal morphology, the form of the noun in the sentence.
3. There is a specific verbal morphology; certain forms of verbs indicate passive voice.

The problem arises with non-European languages. Many constructions in these languages ​​have at least one property with a European cannon passive, but not all. Although it seems justifiable to call this construction passive when comparing it with the passive construction of the European language, the passive whole of the world's languages ​​does not share a common feature.

R. M. W. Dixon has set four criteria to determine whether a construction is passive:

1. This applies to the underlying transitive clause and forms the derived intransitive.
2. An entity that is the patient or object of the transitive verb in the underlying representation (shown as O in linguistic terminology) becomes the core argument of the clause (shown as S , since the core argument is the subject of an intransitive).
3. The agent in the underlying representation (indicated as A ) becomes chÃÆ''meur, a noun in the margin that is not a core argument. This is indicated by a non-core case or being part of an adaptitional phrase, etc. This can be removed, but there is always an option to include it.
4. There are some explicit signs of construction.

Dixon admits that this does not include some constructs that are labeled as passive by some linguists.

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Passive Adversative

Some languages, including some Southeast Asian languages, use a passive voice form to indicate that an action or event is unpleasant or undesirable. This so-called passive adversative works like an ordinary passive voice in terms of syntactic structure - that is, the theme or instrument acting as the subject. In addition, construction shows adverse effects, indicating that a person is adversely affected.

In Japanese, for example, passive passive (also called indirect passive) exhibits an adverse influence. Passive indirect or adversative has the same form as direct passive. Unlike direct passives, indirect passives can be used with intransitive verbs.

Yup'ik, of the Eskimo-Aleut family, has two distinct suffixes that can show passive, -cir - and -ma - . Morfeo -cir - has the opposite meaning. If an agent is entered in passive sentence with passive, the noun is usually in an allative (oblique) case.

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Statif and dynamic passive

In some languages, for example English, there are often similarities between clauses that express an action or an event in a passive voice and a clause that states a state. For example, the sequence of words "Dogs fed" can have the following two meanings:

1. Dogs are fed (twice a day).
2. Dogs are fed (so we can go now).

Adding in parentheses "force" the same set of words to clearly indicate only one of two possible grammatical functions and their associated meanings. In the first sentence, the combination of the additional verb "is" and the past participle "fed" is a regular example of the construction of a passive voice in English. In the second sentence, "is" can be interpreted as an ordinary copula and past participle as an adjective.

Sentences of the second type are called false passives by some linguists, who feel that the sentence is only confused with a passive voice because of its outward similarity. Other linguists consider the second type as a different passive type - a stative passive (rarely called static , static , or resultative passive ), in contrast to the dynamic or passive event illustrated by the first sentence. Some languages ​​express or can express this different meaning by using different constructs.

The difference between passive and dynamic passives is more evident in languages ​​like German that use different words or constructs for both. In Germany, the additional verb "sein" marks static passive (German: Zustandspassiv , rarely statisches Passiv , refers to the German language also called sein -Passiv or Sein-Passiv ), while "werden" marks the dynamic passive ( Vorgangspassiv or Handlungspassiv , seldom dynamisches Passiv >, referring to Germany also called werden -Passiv or Werden-Passiv or just Passiv or Passivum ). A series of English words "cut off grass" has two possible meanings that match the example of "dogs fed" above. It can be used in two different senses:

1. dynamic: The grass is cut (once a week).
2. statif: The grass is broken (so they may not go.)

Germany uses two different grammatical structures for these sentences:

1. dynamic: The grass page is trimmed (once a week).
2. tripod: Page has been truncated (so it may not be there).

Example and further explanation:

1. dynamic: Der Rasen wird (gerade/oft) gemÃÆ'¤ht ("The lawn is being cut now"/"The grass is often cut", literally "Grass gets Cutched now/often ", dynamic)
2. statif: Der Rasen ist (schon) gemÃÆ'¤ht. ("Page is [truncated].")

A number of German verbs such as bedecken ("cover"), erfÃÆ'¼llen ("content"), and trennen ("separate"), when used as a stative verb, usually merely forming a static passive.

- Schnee bedeckt die Erde ("Snow cover the ground", active)

- Die Erde ist mit Schnee bedeckt ("The ground is covered with snow", static)

- rare, poetic: Die Erde wird durch Schnee bedeckt ( The ground is covered with snow , dynamic)

- but not: * Die StraÃÆ'Ÿe wird mit TrÃÆ'¼mmern bedeckt. (The English equivalent will be equally wrong: * "The street is covered with rubble.")

- true: Die StraÃÆ'Ÿe ist mit TrÃÆ'¼mmern bedeckt. ("The streets are filled with debris.")

In English, a passive voice expressed with a "get" rather than a "get" ("get-passive") verb expresses a dynamic rather than a static meaning. But when an additional verb "becomes" is used, the main verb can have dynamic or static meaning as shown below (including multiple copies of examples from above):

Dog is fed twice a day. (dynamic)

Dogs are fed (twice a day). (dynamic)

Dog is fed (so we can go now). (stative)

Couples got married last spring. (dynamic)

Wedding was celebrated last spring. (dynamic)

It was agreed that the law was created for the safety of the citizens. (stative)

Verbs that normally express static meaning can show dynamic meaning when used in passive form with getting , for example known (static) vs. known (dynamic):

Zoltan known to host a big party. (static)

Get your feet at the door, known . (dynamic)

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See also

• Private verbs
• List of common English misconceptions

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References

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External links

• Confusion avoids passivity

Source of the article : Wikipedia