PASSIVE VOICE

ACTIVE / PASSIVE VOICE

A sentence in the active form can be changed into the passive form. Similarly a sentence in the passive form can be changed into the active form.

·                 Active: Brutus stabbed Caesar.

·                 Passive: Caesar was stabbed by Brutus.

·                 Active: The boy killed the spider.

·                 Passive: The spider was killed by the boy.

·                 Active: The teacher punished the boy.

·                 Passive: The boy was punished by the teacher.

·                 Active: His behavior vexes me.

·                 Passive: I am vexed by his behavior.

Notes:

When it is clear who the agent (doer of the action) is, it is not necessary to mention it in the passive form. In fact, this omission often makes the sentence look neater.

·         Active: The audience loudly cheered the Mayor’s speech.

·         Passive: The Mayor’s speech was loudly cheered (by the audience).

·         The active voice is preferred when the agent (i.e. the person who performs the action) is to be made prominent. The passive voice is preferred when the agent is unknown or when we do not care to mention the agent.

The passive form is preferred in the following sentences because the agent is either unknown or unimportant.

·         Passive: My pocket has been picked.

·         Active: Somebody has picked my pocket.

·         Passive: I shall be obliged to go.

·         Active: Circumstances will oblige me to go.

·         Passive: Promises should be kept.

·         Active: One should keep one’s promises.

ACITVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

A sentence can be written in either active voice or passive voice without changing the meaning of it.

When the verb in a sentence shows that the subject is the doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice.

Examples:

1.           Children painted these pictures. (Children – subject; painted – verb; pictures – object)

2.           James writes a letter (James – subject; writes – verb; letter – object)

When the verb in a sentence shows that the subject is not the doer of the action, the verb is in the passive voice. (Generally you will find “by” in the sentence. If “by” is not there, you can put a question “Who?”, you will get an answer.)

Examples:

1.               These pictures were painted by children: (pictures – subject; painted – verb; children - object

2.               A letter is written by James (letter – subject, written – verb; James – Object)

Rules for conversion from Active to Passive Voice

1.      The subject and object are interchanged

2.      The preposition BY is added before the object

3.      The verb is changed to past participle  (3^rd form of verb)

4.      A new auxiliary is added to the Past Participle form of verb.

5.   If the subject or the object in an active voice sentence is a pronoun (I, we, you, he, she, they, it) it changes: (I-me; we-us; you-you; he-him; she-her; they-them; it-it) and vice-versa.  e.g. I wrote a letter – A letter was written by me. The prefect does keep accusing me daily – I am being accused by the prefect daily.

6.    If the subject in the active voice sentence is unknown or unimportant or obvious, by + object is omitted. We make butter from cow’s milk. Butter is made from cow’s milk.

7.     If the verb in the active voice sentence has a modal in it, the verb is changed to – modal + be + the past participle.  e.g. Rajesh can lift this box. This box can be lifted by Rajesh. We should obey the rules. The rules should be obeyed.

8.      When there are two objects, only one object is interchanged. The second object remains unchanged. (He told me a story – He- subject; me – object 1; a story – object 2) ( I was told a story by him; A story was told to me by him)

The table below shows how the verb is changed into its passive voice form in different tenses.

Tense	Active Voice	Passive Voice
The simple present	He eats an apple	An apple is eaten by him.
The present continuous	He is eating an apple.	An apple is being eaten by him.
The present perfect	He has eaten an apple.	An apple has been eaten by him.
The simple past	He ate an apple.	An apple was eaten by him.
The past continuous	He was eating an apple	An apple was being eaten by him
The past perfect	He had eaten an apple	An apple had been eaten by him
The simple future	He will eat an apple	An apple will be eaten by him.
The Future continuous	He will be eating an apple.	An apple will have been eaten by him.
The Future in the past	He would have eaten an apple	An apple would have been eaten by him

Note: Some of the sentences like – sentences constructed using auxiliary verbs (Tashi is a good boy); perfect continuous tenses ( in all the three time periods – Present, Past, Future) (My room mate has been copying my homework) and intransitive verbs ( I go to temple or she has gone to the market) cannot be converted into passive form .

Verbs are also said to be either active (The executive committee approved the new policy) or passive (The new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice. In the active voice, the subject and verb relationship is straightforward: the subject is a be-er or a do-er and the verb moves the sentence along. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er or a be-er, but is acted upon by some other agent or by something unnamed (The new policy was approved). Computerized grammar checkers can pick out a passive voice construction from miles away and ask you to revise it to a more active construction. There is nothing inherently wrong with the passive voice, but if you can say the same thing in the active mode, do so (see exceptions below). Your text will have more pizzazz as a result, since passive verb constructions tend to lie about in their pajamas and avoid actual work.

                                                                                              

We find an overabundance of the passive voice in sentences created by self-protective business interests, magniloquent educators, and bombastic military writers (who must get weary of this accusation), who use the passive voice to avoid responsibility for actions taken. Thus "Cigarette ads were designed to appeal especially to children" places the burden on the ads — as opposed to "We designed the cigarette ads to appeal especially to children," in which "we" accepts responsibility. At a White House press briefing we might hear that "The President was advised that certain members of Congress were being audited" rather than "The Head of the Internal Revenue service advised the President that her agency was auditing certain members of Congress" because the passive construction avoids responsibility for advising and for auditing. One further caution about the passive voice: we should not mix active and passive constructions in the same sentence: "The executive committee approved the new policy, and the calendar for next year's meetings was revised" should be recast as "The executive committee approved the new policy and revised the calendar for next year's meeting."

Take the quiz (below) as an exercise in recognizing and changing passive verbs.
The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in two situations:

·    When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours.

·         When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours.

The passive voice is especially helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of acid is/was poured into the beaker." The passive voice is also useful when describing, say, a mechanical process in which the details of process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately after the acid rinse."

    We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences.

The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" . . . .

The paragraph is clearly about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence. The passive voice allows for this transition.†

Passive Verb Formation

The passive forms of a verb are created by combining a form of the "to be verb" with the past participle of the main verb. Other helping verbs are also sometimes present: "The measure could have been killed in committee." The passive can be used, also, in various tenses. Let's take a look at the passive forms of "design."

Tense	Subject	Auxiliary		Past Participle
		Singular	Plural
Present	The car/cars	is	are	designed.
Present perfect	The car/cars	has been	have been	designed.
Past	The car/cars	was	were	designed.
Past perfect	The car/cars	had been	had been	designed.
Future	The car/cars	will be	will be	designed.
Future perfect	The car/cars	will have been	will have been	designed.
Present progressive	The car/cars	is being	are being	designed.
Past progressive	The car/cars	was being	were being	designed.

A sentence cast in the passive voice will not always include an agent of the action. For instance if a gorilla crushes a tin can, we could say "The tin can was crushed by the gorilla." But a perfectly good sentence would leave out the gorilla: "The tin can was crushed." Also, when an active sentence with an indirect object is recast in the passive, the indirect object can take on the role of subject in the passive sentence:

Active	Professor Villa gave Jorge an A.
Passive	An A was given to Jorge by Professor Villa.
Passive	Jorge was given an A.

Only transitive verbs (those that take objects) can be transformed into passive constructions. Furthermore, active sentences containing certain verbs cannot be transformed into passive structures. To have is the most important of these verbs. We can say "He has a new car," but we cannot say "A new car is had by him." We can say "Josefina lacked finesse," but we cannot say "Finesse was lacked." Here is a brief list of such verbs*:

resemble	look like	equal	agree with
mean	contain	hold	comprise
lack	suit	fit	become

Verbals in Passive Structures

Verbals or verb forms can also take on features of the passive voice. An infinitive phrase in the passive voice, for instance, can perform various functions within a sentence (just like the active forms of the infinitive).

·         Subject: To be elected by my peers is a great honor.

·         Object: That child really likes to be read to by her mother.

·         Modifier: Grasso was the first woman to be elected governor in her own right.

The same is true of passive gerunds.

·         Subject: Being elected by my peers was a great thrill.

·         Object: I really don't like being lectured to by my boss.

·         Object of preposition: I am so tired of being lectured to by my boss.

With passive participles, part of the passive construction is often omitted, the result being a simple modifying participial phrase.

·         [Having been] designed for off-road performance, the Pathseeker does not always behave well on paved highways.

Sumber :

http://shamsheranand.blogspot.com/2013/09/active-passive-voice.html

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm