10. THE PASSIVE VOICE

1. Introduction

                * The subject is affected by the action.
                * The Passive Voice is more appropriate in official language, journalese or scientific English

2. Formation

                * The Passive is formed with the subject  (affected), the corresponding tense of the auxiliary to be and the Past                       Participle of the verb being conjugated.

3. Use of the Passive Voice

                * When the event matters more than the agentive subject:  This packet was brought two days ago.
                * When necessary,  for reasons of contrast, special emphasis, etc. It is then preceded by the preposition  by:
                       He was hated by his own brothers.

4. Comparison with the Spanish Passive

                1. Construction with the passive are much more frequent in English than in Spanish: 
                    The luggage has already been weighed
                2. There is a passive construction in which the indirect object of an active sentence becomes the subject of the passive
                     Two passive constructions a) A book was given to him
                                                            b) He was given a book
                3. It is possible to use the passive construction with intransitive prepositional verbs: They laughed at him
                4. It is important to note the frequent use in English of the progressive or continuous passive:  It's being done
                5. Impersonal passive with believe, consider, know, say, think ...  
                                * They say (that) he's very rich (active)
                                * It's said (that) he's very rich (passive)

5. The most frequent tenses in the Passive

6. Passive constraints

                * Some verbs, only in the active voice, generally
                                to have = tener:  They have a farm
                                to lack = carecer:  She lacks common sense
                                to hold = caber:  The Hall holds 500 people
                                to resemble = parecerse:  You resemble your father
                                to fit = ir bien:  These shoes don't fit me
                                to suit/become = sentar bien:  The dress suit / becomes her
                * When the object is a clause:   Michael thought (that) she was pretty
                * When the object is a reflexive or reciprocal pronoun or when it takes a possessive adjective that refers to the subject:                     She looked at herself in the mirror