I have recently been debating with someone about the true nature of passive voice. While we both understand that passive voice is when the subject of a sentence receives the action, like "he
was hit by the ball", we can't agree about a specific case.
Consider the sentence:
"It is tempting to think about passive voice."
The other individual argues that this is a passive sentence because it is still using an auxiliary verb. For instance, the component "tempting" implies that there must be an infinitive to follow, and thus it's still passive. In other words, it's a passive periphrastic phrase.
I disagree. While the sentence might be a little weak stylistically, it's still grammatically neither active nor passive. In this case, "to be" is being used as a linking verb, so the sentence can't be classified as either.
I was unable to find any good examples about passive and active voice regarding how a sentence constructed this way was classified. Thus, I was hoping someone could shed some light on this befuddling situation. Thanks!