ESL Linguistics Discussion Forum

Re: Personal and Impersonal Passive

Grammar Geek — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:40:51 GMT

Anonymous

You are coping this information from other site, its not fear, its crime !

Would you care to explain that, Anon?

Re: Personal and Impersonal Passive

Francesca — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:40:21 GMT

Hi Anon! Mister Micawber didn't commit any crime, in fact as you can see he gave us the link which he took the paragraph from, just click on "internet":

Mister Micawber

This is off the internet too, Abmateen, but I could do no better:

Re: Personal and Impersonal Passive

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:22:16 GMT

You are coping this information from other site, its not fear, its crime !

Re: Personal and Impersonal Passive

Mister Micawber — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:55:27 GMT

This is off the internet too, Abmateen, but I could do no better:

Personal Passive simply means that the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence. So every verb that needs an object (transitive verb) can form a personal passive.

Example: They build houses. â Houses are built.

Verbs without an object (intransitive verb) normally cannot form a personal passive sentence (as there is no object that can become the subject of the passive sentence). If you want to use an intransitive verb in passive voice, you need an impersonal construction â therefore this passive is called Impersonal Passive.

Example: he says â it is said

Impersonal Passive is not as common in English as in some other languages (e.g. German, Latin). In English, Impersonal Passive is only possible with verbs of perception (e. g. say, think, know).

Example: They say that women live longer than men. â It is said that women live longer than men.

Although Impersonal Passive is possible here, Personal Passive is more common.

Example: They say that women live longer than men. â Women are said to live longer than men.

[To form Impersonal Passive] the subject of the subordinate clause (women) goes to the beginning of the sentence; the verb of perception is put into passive voice. The rest of the sentence is added using an infinitive construction with 'to' (certain auxiliary verbs and that are dropped).

Sometimes the term Personal Passive is used in English lessons if the indirect object of an active sentence is to become the subject of the passive sentence.

Personal and Impersonal Passive

Abmateen — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:43:56 GMT

Asslam-u-alikum,
Can anyone tell me what is personal or impersonal passive i have some articles from the internet but they did not satisfied me.so please give me some explanation.