PASSIVE VOICE

1. USE Passives are much more frequent in English than in Spanish in all kinds of contexts for several reasons: a. Impersonality: the speaker does not want to show his implication in the sentence. Ex: Tons of rubbish are thrown out to the sea every year. b. Focus: we want to put some emphasis on a certain part of the sentence. Ex: The entire crop was damaged by the strong winds. 2. TRASFORMATION In order to change an active sentence into passive, the sentence must be transitive. The steps to follow are the following. - The Direct Object (DO) becomes the subject of the new sentences. - The verb changes into passive form, as follows. The verb be adopts the person, form and tense of the original verb, and the original verb changes into past participle. Get can also be used as auxiliary. - The original subject becomes the agent, introduced by the preposition by. ITS NOT NECCESARY. SHE KICKED THE BALL

THE BALL

WAS KICKED

BY HER

When the sentence is ditransitive (DO + IO), we can make two different passives. In Option 1 you need to introduce to in the IO. Option 2 sounds more natural in English. SHE SENT US A POSTCARD

Option 1. Option 2.

A POSTCARD WE

WAS SENT

TO US

BY HER BY HER

WERE SENT

A POSTCARD

There is one more type of passive; its the impersonal passive or passive with verbs of saying and believing, such as agree believe consider expect feel find hope know say suppose think understand Examples: A. Everybody knows that elephants have good memory. It is known that elephants have good memory. Elephants are known to have good memory. B. People say that Mary has a new boyfriend. Its is said that Mary has a new boyfriend.

Mary is said to have a new boyfriend.

As we see in the examples, there are two possibilities but the second one is more natural, in which the new passive is formed with a verb of saying or believing in the passive form followed by the 'toinfinitive' of the verb.

3. LIST OF TENSES Active Verb Present Simple He cooks breakfast. Present Continuous She is cooking breakfast. Past Simple I cooked breakfast. Past Continuous They were cleaning the streets. Present Perfect They have forbidden cigarettes. Past Perfect The fuel had damaged the coast. Simple Future He will bring the newspaper. Be going to They are going to repair my bike. Modals (must/would/should/can) You must fasten your seatbelt. Perfect Modals He must have brought them. Have to You have to do homework. 4. CAUSATIVE Passive Auxiliary Breakfast is (gets) Breakfast is being Breakfast was The streets were being Cigarettes have been The coast had been The newspaper will be My bike is going to be Your seatbelt must be They must have been Homework has to be Past Participle Cooked. Cooked. Cooked. Cleaned. Forbidden. Damaged. Brought. Repaired. Fastened. Brought. Done.

SUBJECT + HAVE/GET something DONE

When one does not carry out an action oneself but rather has the action done by someone else, this is expressed by a causative construction. The causative is similar to passive. It uses auxiliaries, but we focus on the fact that someone does something for you. In English it is the verb have that introduces the causative: have+ DO (noun or pronoun) + past participle. Ex: I'm having my car serviced at the moment. Sally has had her hair cut. When we wish to designate the agent of the action there are two possibilities: 1. have + DO + past participle + by + agent: Examples: The professor had the work done by his lab assistants. I had it done by my employees. 2. have + agent (as a DO noun or pronoun) + infinitive + object (DO noun or pronoun) Examples: The professor had his students write an essay. I had him do it. Note: Especially in spoken English, the verb get often replaces have, in which case "to" is added to the infinitive (but not before past participles) Examples: We'll get a monument erected on this site. The professor got his students to write an essay.