Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Passive sentences' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Passive sentences'

Re: passive voice

Goodman — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:54:10 GMT

Huevos,

So am I correct to assume that your classification of âexhaustedâ is adjectival in nature? Perhaps, this is the difference between how you and I see it. For pure fact finding interest, I have done some more investigative research: Bear in mind, my sentence was âI am completely exhausted from â¦â

Your answer was âItâs activeâ.

http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/grammar/passives-agents.htm

English Grammar

Passives: Agents

In most cases, the subject of an active verb (the agent) is not mentioned in the corresponding passive sentence. If it does have to be mentioned, we usually use an expression with by.

They gave me a warm welcome. (active)
I was given a warm welcome by them. (passive)
Children love toys. (active)
Toys are loved by children. (passive)
They built this house. (active)
This house was built by them.
Her attitude shocked me.
I was shocked by her attitude.

It should be noted that by is not the only word with which the agent can be introduced. After the past participles of some 'stativeâ verbs (verbs which refer to states, not actions) other prepositions can be used instead of by.

The state of his health worries me. (active)
I am worried about the state of his health. (passive)
Snakes scare me. (active)
I am scared of snakes. (passive)

With is used when we talk about an instrument which is used by an agent to do an action.

He killed the snake with a stick. (active)
The snake was killed (by him) with a stick. (passive)

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http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2003AprJun/0312.html

Passive voice is a verb where the action is done to the subject of the
clause, often by something. (The verb "done" there is the first verb in the
passive voice in this email). The pattern is that there is a subject, a
verb,
perhaps an agent (the thing that "does" the verb to the subject, and
possible
other stuff too.

Something that seems to confuse people is the pattern of the subject, the
verb to be (is, are, will be, was, etc) and an adjective or participle - a
description of the subject.

For example, "I am confused" is technically in the passive voice. However it
is a description of me like "I am tall" which is definitely not in the
passive voice. The confusion comes about because english uses a similar
pattern to make passive voice.

I suggest that we do not discourage this simple form, whether it is a
passive
construction or a simple description.

"I am confused by the passive voice" is the third time I have used the
<<<passive voice>>> in this email. It has the pattern subject - "me", a
verb - "confuse", and an agent - "the passive voice" - the thing which did
the confusing.

For most verbs in english (and many modern european languages) the passive
voice is made by combining the past participle (often "something-ed") with
the verb to be. (That was the fourth example: subject is the passive voice,
verb is to make, agent is the whole description of how to make it). For
example, The example I have used here is the verb "to confuse" - the passive
of "to confuse" is "to be confused".

Continues..on website.

Hope this resolved the difference of interpretations.

Re: "BY" versus "THROUGH"

Mister Micawber — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:18:02 GMT

The agent is what we call the subject in an active voice sentence-- the doer of the verb action:

'My bicycle was stolen by a Mesopotamian.'-- in this passive sentence, the Mesopotamian is the agent, and in its active form it would read: 'A Mesopotamian stole my bike'.

The method or medium is, welll, just what it suggests-- the way the action occurred:

'My bicycle was stolen through trickery and deceit'. Now, of course, you may find this sentence in the form: 'my bicycle was stolen by trickery and deceit', and 'trickery and deceit' remain the method, and not two agents named Trickery and Deceit. There are also other prepositions that serve these functions: via, with, etc.

Therefore, you must use raw brain power to determine logically whether the noun is an agent or a medium-- or a timespan or other adverbial.

Re: Adnominal relative adverb, relative pronoun

rhetor — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 20:53:19 GMT

The woman is a TV reporter who is standing in the hotel elevator.

There's nothing wrong with this sentence.

"Detective: I'm looking for two suspects: one is a man; the other, a woman. Here are their photos. Have you seen them?

Helpful Janitor: Sure. The man is an executive who is sitting in the lobby. The woman is a TV reporter who is standing in the hotel elevator."

Again, there is NOTHING wrong with your original sentence. It would be an awkward substitute for "The woman who is standing in the hotel elevator is a TV reporter"; but it is not, per se, incorrect.

A stative verb, generally, cannot be made into a passive sentence. However, some stative verbs have "active" forms in which the verb has another meaning.

2. Is 'in which the verb has another meaning' an adjective clause which modifies the noun forms ?

Personally, I don't like to look at phrases as if they had the same characteristics as individual parts of speech. However, many would say that the phrase "in which the verb has another meaning" answers the question "what kind of 'forms'?" Since adjectives often specify the kind of noun discussed, the phrase in question could be called "adjectival."

3. Is 'which' a relative pronoun? Is the noun forms its antecedent?

Yes to both questions.

4. Which word is the object or complement of the preposition in?
forms? or which? or both?

"Which" is a relative pronoun; it is the object of "in." The antecedent of "which" is "forms." "Forms" is the object of the verb "have," not of the preposition"in."

5. Can I replace 'in which' with 'where'? ( i.e. .......verbs have "active forms" where the verb ...)

No. You can, however, replace "in which" with "whose," a substitution made often in English.

"However, some stative verbs have active forms whose verb has another meaning."

"Whose" is the possessive case of "who" or "which" (the other relative pronouns -- what, that, as -- lack a possessive case). The possessive case performs a similar function of limiting the thing-possessed as an article. For example, we might say "The novels of Hemingway," but we drop the article when we say "Hemingway's novels." Limitation on the word "novels" is accomplished either by means of the article or the possessive, but not by both. For this reason, we drop the definite article "the" before "verb" in the problem sentence.

The place at which I work is a hospital.

6. Is which a relative pronoun? Is 'the place' its antecedent?

Yes to both questions.

7. Which word(s) is the object or complement of the preposition at?
The place? or which? or both?

The object of "at" is "which." The antecedent of "which" is "place."

8. Can I replace 'at which' with 'where'? (i.e. The place where I work is a hospital.)

Informally, there's nothing wrong with such a replacement.

9. My dictionary considers 'where' as a relative pronoun, but someone suggests it should be an adnominal relative adverb in the situation in question. What difference does it make if there're any?

"Where" generally indicates something to do with a place, making it (in most contexts) an adverb. Informally, "where" can sometimes function as a so-called "relative adverb." It can join clauses (or join a phrase to a clause) and has an antecedent. "The place where I took her was serene." In this example, we have two clauses:

Clause 1: "The place was serene.
Clause 2: "I took her where."

Like a relative pronoun, the relative adverb "where" is brought around to the front of clause 2 and used to join it to the head of clause 1. Usually, such connectives are brought as close as possible to their antecedent; here, "The place" and "where" are next to each other. Informally, the construction is used often. Formally, however, it doesn't stand up under analysis, because "where" must not only have an antecedent, but include within it the meaning of the preposition "to." The meaning of clause 2, after all, is "I took her TO the place." In general, therefore, it's not a good idea to substitute an adverb like "where" for a genuine relative pronoun -- who, which, what, that, as -- and the appropriate preposition.

Adnominal relative adverb, relative pronoun

meantolearn — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 23:33:07 GMT

Hi Englishpros,

* The woman is a TV reporter who is standing in the hotel elevator.

1. Someone suggests the sentence above should be wrong. Why?
_________________________________________________________

A stative verb, generally, cannot be made into a passive sentence. However, some stative verbs have "active" forms in which the verb has another meaning.

2. Is 'in which the verb has another meaning' an adjective clause which modifies the noun forms ?

3. Is 'which' a relative pronoun? Is the noun forms its antecedent?

4. Which word is the object or complement of the preposition in?
forms? or which? or both?

5. Can I replace 'in which' with 'where'? ( i.e. .......verbs have "active forms" where the verb ...)
___________________________________________________________

The place at which I work is a hospital.

6. Is which a relative pronoun? Is 'the place' its antecedent?

7. Which word(s) is the object or complement of the preposition at?
The place? or which? or both?

8. Can I replace 'at which' with 'where'? (i.e. The place where I work is a hospital.)

9. My dictionary considers 'where' as a relative pronoun, but someone suggests it should be an adnominal relative adverb in the situation in question. What difference does it make if there're any?

Re: Hanuman_2000

paco2004 — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 02:33:38 GMT

I don't mind so much about whether the "down" in "down the road" is an adverb or a preposition because usually we don't use a passive sentence with "the road" as the subject even if the "down" is an adverb. What I am interested in is whether the frequencies for the uses of "walk down X" and "walk up X" would depend on the noun X.

Results of Google survey
(AmE/BrE) =(domain .edu/domain.uk)
I chose only the websites in "edu" domain for AmE because a considerable part of the "com" sites are reckoned to be written by foreigners.

the way :
walked the way (83/83) walked down the way (13/3) walked up the way (0/0) walked along the way (10/6) walked in the way (130/173) walked on the way (13/14)
the street :
walked the street (123/74) walked down the street (751/601) walked up the street (197/404) walked along the street (127/381) walked in the street (39/65) walked on the street (27/28)
the road :
walked the road (117/173) walked down the road (373/1170) walked up the road (100/698) walked along the road (151/579) walked in the road (16/30) walked on the road (23/62)
the path :
walked the path (206/348) walked down the path (163/292) walked up the path (78/302) walked along the path (116/262) walked in the path (27/13) walked on the path (17/30)
the avenue :
walked the avenue (11/14) walked down the avenue (13/16) walked up the avenue (9/7) walked along the avenue (1/3) walked in the avenue (0/0) walked on the avenue (0/0)
the boulevard :
walked the boulevard (3/1) walked down the boulevard (9/3) walked up the boulevard (0/0) walked along the boulevard (10/7) walked in the boulevard (0/0) walked on the boulevard (1/10)
the alley :
walked the alley (0/0) walked down the alley (19/85) walked up the alley (9/7) walked along the alley (1/3) walked in the alley (0/0) walked on the alley (0/0)

What I noticed are;
(1) Generally people prefer "to walk down X" to "to walked up X". (The exception is the case X is "the path" and the speakers are British). It is true especially when X is "the street" and the speakers are Americans. This suggests some of people use the preposition/adverb "down" without meaning actually descending direction.
(2) The use of "in" is very frequent in the case where X is "the way" but most of the uses of "walked in the way" is probably used as a figurative sense.

paco

Re: Grammatical subject / subject

miriam — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 02:53:36 GMT

In a sentence in the passive voice, the receiver of the action is both the grammatical/formal subject and the real/notional subject.

In "A new art gallery was opened last Saturday"
"a new art gallery" is the only possible subject of the sentence. It is both the grammatical and the notional subject.

Grammatical and notional subjects don't depend on voice. In "the book was written by John", "John" is not the notional subject for several reasons:
1. "John" is a noun, but it is only part of a prepositional phrase, you can't separate the noun from the preposition andmake it the subject of the sentence.
2. Even if you could separate the prepositional phrase, "John" still wouldn't work as the subject of the verb in the passive voice.
3. "by John" is recognised, as a modifier in the predicate, as the "agent". It appears only in passive sentences.
4. The subject of a sentence is not necessarily the "doer" of the action expressed by the verb; it can also be the "receiver" of the action.

In certain types of sentences, you have both a grammatical and a notional subject, as in cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences:
"It was John who wrote the book."

In the example above, "it" is the grammatical subject because it is only "filling" the usual place of the subject. And "John" is the notional/real subject.

One possible way of analysing this sentence is the following:
"It": grammatical/formal subject (called "anticipatory it").
"John": notional/real subject.
"was who wrote the book": predicate, in which "was" is the head and "who wrote the book" is the predicative/subject complement.

I wish I had more time to add more details, but I hope this helps.

Miriam

Re: Passive sentences ??

anon1 — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 19:50:21 GMT

There was a mistake in Mountain Hiker's example.

Where?

In a sentence in the passive voice, the construction that acted as subject in the active sentence becomes what is called "agent", and it is introduced by the preposition "by". That is, *if* it is needed at all. One of the most common reasons for using the passive voice is precisely the fact that the "doer" of the action is unimportant, unknown, or understood without the need of stating it in the sentence.

We both agree that the following sentence is active?

A) Mary created a sofware program. Active

Then, I wrote,

B) A software program was created for Mary. Passive

As you yourself mention that the doer of the action is unimportant, unknown, or understood without the need of stating it in the sentence. In the second example, I don't know who created the software program for Mary, nor do I care.

Sentences such as exemplified in the second example are common in everyday spoken and written English. As far as I know, sentence B is not active. If I throw that sentence into MS Word, it comes back as passive.

Imagine the following situation:

Juan: Did Mary get that custom software she needed?

Julie: Yes, a software program was created for Mary.

In this case, nobody knows or cares about who created the software.

I look forward to your reply.

Re: Passive sentences ??

miriam — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 05:26:18 GMT

Hello, Kynguyen

You are right. There was a mistake in Mountain Hiker's example.

If "Mary created a software program", then the passive counterpart of that sentence is "A software program was created by Mary".

In a sentence in the passive voice, the construction that acted as subject in the active sentence becomes what is called "agent", and it is introduced by the preposition "by". That is, *if* it is needed at all. One of the most common reasons for using the passive voice is precisely the fact that the "doer" of the action is unimportant, unknown, or understood without the need of stating it in the sentence.

Miriam

Re: Passive sentences ??

dino95126 — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 01:22:23 GMT

You are correct, kynguyen. "A software program was created for Mary" means that it was created for the benefit of Mary, or designed to her own personal specifications. It is unknown who created it. To indicate that, you must use the preposition "by": "A software program was created by Vivian for Mary."

Re: Passive

miriam — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 06:47:44 GMT

Hello, Daniel

There is an explanation for the existence of sentences like "I'm given water" which is, by the way, grammatically correct.

As has been explained here, the first you need in order for a sentence in the passive voice to be possible is a transitive verb and its direct object. You may have sentences like:
"Someone has stolen my wallet."
"My wallet has been stolen."
"steal" is a transitive verb, and its object (in the first sentence) is "my wallet". In the second sentence (passive voice) the object of the first sentence has become subject, and "someone" is not necessary because it does not add any useful information. If it did, or if it were relevant for any orher reasons, it would appear in the predicate of the sentence introduced by the preposition "by", and the construction would be the "agent", as in "My wallet has been stolen by someone."

"Stesl" is, among transitive verbs, called "monotransitive" because it takes only one object: the direct object. Two other types of transitive verbs exist in English: "ditransitive" and "complex transitive". A ditransitive verb is one that takes two objects: direct and indirect. A complex transitive verb is one that takes a direct object and an object complement. You may think this is superfluous information, but it is important for what comes next.

You asked about a different case which sounded awkward to you: "I was given water". This will sound strange, for example, to Spanish speakers because we do not have a smilar cnstruction in spanish; yet, it is possible and correct in English. However, not every sentence that contains a transitive verb will accept this type of conversion to the passive. In order for a sentence such as "I was give water" to be possible, you need a "ditransitive" verb, that is, a verb that has both a direct and an indirect object.
In active sentences such as "He gave water to me", in which you have two objects (water: direct object; to me: indirect object), more than one passive form is possible. You know that the direct object "water" can become subject of the passive sentence:
"Water was given to me."
What is perhaps 'new' here is that the indirect object may as well become the subject of the passive sentence:
"I was given water".
Since both passive forms are possible and correct, you have a choice which will depend on the situation in which the sentence is used. What is more important to you in the sentence? "I", as opposed to anyone else, or "water", as opposed to milk, coffee or wine? The second example, however, seems to be more common. Other verbs that admit this type of transformation into the passive are show, ask, teach, pay, tell, deny, grant, hand, offer, throw, just to mention a few.

Here are some examples:

Active: "John asked Steve a question." (Steve: IO; a question: DO)
Passive 1: "A question was asked of Steve."
Passive2: "Steve was asked a question."

Active: "You are telling me lies." (me: IO; lies: DO)
Passive 1: "Lies are being told to me." (not commonly used, really)
Passive 2: "I'm being told lies."

Active: "The company will offer Mr. Jones a position as accountant." (Mr Jones: IO; a position as accountant: DO)
Passive 1: "A position as accountant will be offered to Mr Jones."
Passive 2: "Mr Jones will be offered a position as accountant."

There are other instances of sentences in the passive voice which are different from the most commonly taught type "Water was given to me":

There are sentences such as "They say that the price of oil will rise" in which 'they' has no specific referent; it refers to many people, yet to no one in particular. "Say" is used monotransitively in the sentence, so one would think that the only possible passive construction would be:
"That the price of oil will rise is said."
This sentence, although grammatically correct, is seldom, if ever, used in English. Another possibility, and by far the most common, is:
"It is said that the price of oil will rise."

There is yet more to passive voice, but I hope this helps.

Miriam