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Using the Passive

We were robbed by the referees

The progressive is not the only structure in which be is an auxiliary verb followed by something that could be mistaken for an adjective. In sentence (1), the "were" is an auxiliary form of be and "robbed" is a past participle.

(1) We were robbed by the referees.

Whenever a form of be is followed by a past participle we have a special kind of structure called the passive. In a passive sentence, the grammatical subject of the sentence is not the person or thing which performs the action but one of its objects. If the agent which performs the action (like the referees) is present in the passive sentence at all, it is placed in a prepositional phrase beginning with by. The original verb becomes a past participle preceded by be. A non-passive (active) sentence equivalent of sentence (1) would be:

(2) The referees robbed us.
Rob is a regular English verb, so its past participle looks just like its simple past tense. That is not true for some very common verbs, and this might be a good time to go back and review our section on " Basic Verbs." The sentences below feature some irregular verbs. They come in pairs, a normal, active sentence, followed by a sentence in which the original subject has been moved into a by prepositional phrase, the original direct object has become the subject, and the verb is now a past participle preceded by a form of be:
(3) (a) Ella did my hair.
(b) My hair was done by Ella.
(4) (a) Everyone knew her.
(b) She was known by everyone.
(5) (a) All the girls wore bikinis.
(b) Bikinis were worn by all the girls.
(6) (a) I wrote those songs.
(b) Those songs were written by me.
Because the original object becomes the subject, only transitive verbs, those able to take direct objects, can form passive sentences. Ditransitive (dative) verbs like give can have both a direct object and an indirect object, either one of which can become the subject of a passive sentence. That means that there is more than one passive equivalent for such sentences:
(7) (a) We gave George a puppy.
(b) George was given a puppy by us.
(c) A puppy was given George by us.
Although not all prepositional phrases with by are part of passive sentences, the presence of such a PP should make one check to see if the sentence is passive. Unfortunately, this handy diagnostic tool is not always present. Passive sentences are often used when one doesn't know who did something, so that there is no agent mentioned:
(8) The bow was bent.
(9) The ball was caught.
Such sentences are still passive, because they have a form of be as an auxiliary verb followed by a past participle. If we want to make such sentences active, we have to introduce an indefinite pronoun like something or someone as the subject:
(10) Something bent the bow.
(11) Someone caught the ball.

Exercise 1: Uses of Be

It's time to review the many uses of be in English. Is the was in the following sentences (A) a main verb (linking verb), (B) an auxiliary helping to form the progessive, or (C) an auxiliary helping to form the passive?
1.01 The dinner was prepared by our top chefs.
1.02 Donna was loud.
1.03 Evelyn was singing loudly.
1.04 Judy was promoted.
1.05 No one was watching the store.
1.06 Our course schedule was prepared last January.
1.07 The preacher was over the top.
1.08 The rifle was ready to fire.
1.09 Susan was praised by her professor.
1.10 Ted was running out of excuses.

Voice and Tense. The passive is not really a kind of tense, though you may see it referred to as such. The technical term for passive (and active) is voice. As with the progressive, the tense of a passive sentence depends on the tense of the first auxiliary. Past participles like "robbed" may look just like a normal past tense, and that's true for most verbs in English, but they do not convey tense. Sentence (12) is a present passive because of the is; its past passive equivalent would be sentence (13):

(12) Angela is betrayed by the police.
(13) Angela was betrayed by the police.

Passive Trees. Although one can think of passive sentences as derived from their active equivalents by a PASSIVE movement, we will spare ourselves the use of traces in our phrase structure trees. Our phrase structure trees for the passive will therefore look a bit like phrase structure trees for the progressive, with one verb, (EM>be, taking as its complement a verb phrase headed by the verb of the past participle. If the original agent is in a prepositional phrase, make sure that is shown as part of the verb phrase of the original verb.

Exercise 2: Changing Voices

Turn the following passive sentences back into active sentences, supplying indefinite pronoun subjects where necessary:
2.01 The guard was distracted by the girl.
2.02 Henry was put in an asylum by his family.
2.03 Sleep was murdered by Macbeth.
2.04 My back was injured.
2.05 Waldo was kissed in the closet.
Turn the following active sentences into passive sentences, moving the direct object into the subject position, turning the original verb into a past participle preceded by be, and moving the original subject into a prepositional phrase headed by by:
2.06 George failed the grammar test.
2.07 German attacked France.
2.08 She gave him the cold.
2.09 He thought card-playing a waste of time.
2.10 The wolves raised Mowgli well.

How Much of This Will be on the Test?
At this point, you should be able to recognize whether sentences are active or passive in voice. You should be able to convert a passive sentence to its active equivalent and to convert an active sentence with some kind of transitive verb into a passive. You should be able to recognize whether be is a main verb or auxiliary; if it is the latter, you should be able to distinguish between its use to mark the progressive and its use to mark the passive. Remember that if you have forgotten some of the terms defined earlier and used here, that you can look them up in the Glossary)