15.

The Passive; (be) + third form

All the verb forms we have considered so far are those traditionally called
active. Within the verb phrase in statements the word order invariably is
subject verb; the statement tells us who did what. In certain situations,
however, it is possible to express a different set of relationships, using the
structure traditionally known as the passive. In English, it is characterised
formally by (be) + third form of the verb. It may be combined with the
other tense or aspect forms to produce complex forms. Here are some
examples:
It was designed in Italy.
The road is being widened next year.
He had to be told.
We were caught on the wrongfoot by the news.
Its taken from an original by Goya.
A small point of terminology may be noted. The traditional description
of the form of the verb used to make the passive is the past participle. This
is a source of some potential confusion as the form is also used to make
present passive forms. This difficulty is overcome by adopting the simpler
terminology (be) + third form.
Structurally the passive is simple. Every example of the passive is charac
terised by (be) + third form. Some traditional books, and even some
published recently, make the form of the passive appear extremely compli
cated by presenting it in full paradigmatic form. Such a presentation is
unnecessarily confusing. The present, past, and perfect passives can all be
represented in the following simple table:
Present

he she it *s
we
you
they

re

asked

Past

Perfect

I
he she it was

I
you
we
they

we
you
they

were

asked

From A Very Simple Grammar O fEnglish, LTP, 1985

have

he she it has

been
asked

132

The passive; (be) + thirdform

The inevitable existence of a (be) auxiliary in passive forms means that

the formation of questions, negatives, tags, interested responses etc. (See
Chapter 7) is no more complex than with the verb (be) itself, or, for exam
ple, the present continuous.
In forms which contain a passive and, a perfect or a continuous
form, more than one auxiliary is involved, and that has sometimes led
teachers to think that the passive is difficult from a structural point of
view. The main difficulty is not structural, but semantic.
In language teaching the passive is nearly always presented as an
alternative to the active. In most reaching, sentences such as:
Shakespeare wrote it.
-*It was written by Shakespeare.
are presented as different ways of saying the same thing. It is true that the
two sentences given have the same referential meaning, and that both are
well-formed. It is not, however, true that for every well-formed passive sent
ence there is an underlying equivalent active sentence. Neither is it true that
every active sentence may be turned into the passive. The central problem
with the passive is to decide when it is appropriate or even necessary to use
it. This question is usually completely avoided in language teaching.

Some dangers in the classroom

In any structural syllabus students meet active sentences before passive.
The temptation, and general practice, is then to present the passive as a
transformation of corresponding active sentences. Allsop says:
The general relationship between the ordi
nary (active) form and the passive form is:

and this probably represents the most frequent way of introducing the
passive.
The assumption is that the active is ordinary, and the passive is in
some way derived from it for special purposes. While it is true that the pas
sive is sometimes used for stylistic reasons, in scientific writing for example,
(see below) the passive is not a strange alternative for the active; it fulfils an
essential role in the language and exists independently of the active.
If we begin from the position described by Allsop, we are then led into a
discussion of the occasions on which the agent is omitted. Once more, the
approach can create exceptions. It is simpler, and more logical to begin with
examples where the doer of the action is unknowable:
The earth wasformed millions o fyears ago.
By whom or by what is unknowable, or at the very least unknown. The
passive will always be appropriate, and usually preferable, in cases where
the doer is unknowable or unknown.
Sometimes, although the doer is unknown, both an active and a passive
sentence, with the same referential meaning are possible:

The passive; (be) + thirdform

My camera has been stolen.

Somebody has stolen my camera.
In this case, in order to produce an active sentence an artificial or dummy
subject is introduced somebody. It will be noted that here the active sent
ence presupposes an unknown, but knowable person. If this presupposi
tion is invalid, for example, because the natural presupposition is that the
action was performed by a large number of nameless people, the passive
will usually be preferred:
The whole town was rebuilt after the war.
A t leastfive film s o f Macbeth have been made.
It is not easy to find natural active alternatives for these examples.
It is true that in speech, and in informal writing, the active tends to be
preferred to the passive, so that cases where a general group of people
performed the action, they is frequently introduced as a dummy subject:
The road is being widened.
-*Theyre widening the road.
Taxes have been put up again. ->Theyve put up taxes again.
The passive exists quite independently of the active. It is obligatory if the
doer is unknowable. It is frequent, although optional, if the doer is a
general group. It is possible, though less frequent if the doer is supposed
by the speaker to be an unknown individual. If we develop this sequence
unknowable, unknown, one step further, we see that the passive will also be
possible in certain cases where the doer is not of particular interest at the
moment of speaking:
The house was sold again six months later.
Has your television been repaired yet?
Finally, the passive may be a pure stylistic variant. It is, for example, the
standard in the describing of scientific experiments. It is considered
unscientific to describe an experiment as follows, I heated the test tube.. ,
the passive The test tube was heated. . . always being preferred. In this case
it is the sense of objectivity given by the passive which causes the form to be
preferred. The implication is clearly that if the reader repeats the experi
ment, the results will be the same; in other words, the doer was incidental
to what was done.
Occasionally the passive is even more optionally a stylistic variant. For
reasons of tact or modesty, for example, the passive or the use of a dummy
subject, may be preferred to the natural active sentence in the following:
la An increase in the subscription was suggested.
Ib Somebody suggested an increase in the subscription.
lc I suggested an increase in the subscription.
2a I was told you were leaving.
2b Somebody told me you were leaving.
2c Angela told me you were leaving.
Much language teaching has misrepresented the passive. It has started by
assuming it is a variation on the active. This is completely the wrong way
round. The passive is necessary in certain cases of general, unknown agents.
It is then generalisable to examples where, as the traditional explanation
put it, what is done is more important than who does it. The agent is only

133

The passive; (be) + thirdform

included in a passive sentence if it is essential to the meaning.

It is interesting to consider what certain discussions of the passive have
to say on this matter.
Thomson and Martinet say the passive is used:
When it is more convenient or interesting to stress the
thing done than the doer of it, or when the doer is
unknown: My watch was stolen is much more usual
than Thieves stole my watch.
This is very litde help. In the example given, thieves is little more than a
substitute subject, a more concrete version of somebody, suggested by the
semantics of stolen. The discussion (the only discussion of the use of the
passive in the whole book) omits the essential information that it is the
speaker who chooses a passive, and that in some cases a passive may be
obligatory, or at least an active sentence highly unusual.
Allsop says:
The subject of any sentence is the subject because it is
what we are mainly interested in .. .To describe the use
of the passive, we could begin this paragraph by saying:
We use the passive t o ...
The passive is used t o ...
Because the passive in this case is more important than
we, it would be logical to make the passive the subject
of our sentence. In other words, the most important
item becomes the subject of our sentence.
Again, there are two problems. In ... what we are mainly interested in,
Allsop intends we to mean the speaker. Throughout this book I have
emphasised again and again that grammar is not only a matter of fact, but
frequently a matter of the speakers choice. The same point needs to be re
emphasised here.
Again, in the example given we is effectively a dummy subject. One of
the ways of noting that the passive will be preferred, is to note that the
natural active sentence suggested by the same referential meaning, will
contain a dummy subject, often they, we, or somebody.
For the fullest discussion of the passive, the reader is referred to
Practical English Usage, paragraph 457.
Swans treatment, which is considerably fuller than any of the other
works referred to, discusses the contrast between meaning and form, and
the choice between active and passive constructions where these are
optional. The area is complex, and Swan gives excellent guidance.

Some improbable forms

In theory, the passive can combine with all other verb forms; in practice,
certain forms are very rare. The passive always involves (be) + third form;
durative forms always (be) + . . .ing. Not surprisingly, passive duratives,
containing (be) twice, are rare, although they do exist:
The road was being repaired last week.
Forms which contain been being, are even rarer: Hes been being treated
with radium.

The passive; (be) + thirdform

As with certain other forms which are phonetically difficult, and conse
quently felt to be ugly, these tend to be avoided.

Introducing the passive

It is not always clear if a sentence contains a passive. Some words have now
passed into the language as adjectives:
I was late.
I was amazed.
I was amazed by what he said.
In the first sentence late is an adjective; in the second sentence it is perfectly
possible to see amazed in the same way, as an adjective. It is also possible to
see was amazed as a passive, and this tendency is slightly stronger in the last
example where an agent is mentioned.
The reader may care to decide which of the following sentences contain
adjectives, and which contain the passive:
Were you surprised ?
They were attacked in the park.
I m annoyed about that.
The shop was closed when I got there.
The road was closed by the police.
The music wasnt live it was recorded.
Some o f them are black and white and others are brightly coloured.
These few examples are sufficient to show that it is difficult to be deci
sive. If open in The shop was open is an adjective, it seems logical that
closed in The shop was closed must also be an adjective. At the same time, it
is easy to see The road was closed by the police, as an example of the
passive.
Instead of seeing this as a source of confusion, however, we can see it as
a source of help. Instead of introducing students to the passive through
unnatural and contrived exercises of the Make the following sentences
passive.. .kind, it may be much better pedagogically to introduce them to
the passive through examples similar to the above, where the adjectival
quality of the verb phrase leads students to an understanding of the use of
the passive independently of the active.
It is also notable that the passive is usually taught relatively late in struc
tural courses it is seen as a difficult structure. In fact, it is no more
difficult structurally than some of the sentences which will occur in the first
few units of most course books.
A Are you French?
B No Im not, Im German.

A Are you surprised?

B No Im not, Im annoyed.

While I do not wish to recommend such artificial practices, it is useful to

know that certain passives naturally occur quite independently of their
active equivalents, and that there is no justification for delaying the pres
entation of these important structures on grounds of difficulty.

Summary
Structurally, the passive is simple; all passive forms are marked by the
occurrence of (be) + third form. This factor may be combined with others

The passive; (be) + thirdform

to form retrospective passives, durative passives etc. Certain forms, for

stylistic or phonetic reasons, are unusual.
In general, the passive will be chosen if the doer of the action:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

is unknowable, or less restrictively,

is an unknown general group, or, less restrictively,
is unknown, or, less restrictively,
is of less interest to the speaker in the particular context, than the action
itself.

On most occasions, the agent (doer) is not mentioned. The agent is men
tioned only if essential to the meaning.