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.It’s 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 charac­terised by (be) + third form. Some traditional books, and even some published recently, make the form of the passive appear extremely compli­cated 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 Past Perfect

I ’m

he she it *s askedweyou ’rethey

Ihe she it was

we askedyou werethey

Iyouwethey

have

he she it has

beenasked

From A Very Simple Grammar O f English, LTP, 1985

132The passive; (be) + third form

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 exam­ple, 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 sent­ence 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 classroomIn 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 ordi­nary (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 pas­sive 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 was formed millions o f years 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) + third form133

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 sent­ence presupposes “an unknown, but knowable person”. If this presupposi­tion 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 least five films 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. -*■ They’re widening the road.Taxes have been put up again. -> They’ve 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 experi­ment, 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.2 a 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

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 to ...The passive is used to ...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 speaker’s choice. The same point needs to be re­emphasised 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.

Swan’s 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 formsIn 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: He’s been being treated with radium.

The passive; (be) + third form

The passive; (be) + third form

As with certain other forms which are phonetically difficult, and conse­quently felt to be “ugly”, these tend to be avoided.

Introducing the passiveIt 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 wasn’t 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 deci­sive. 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 struc­tural 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? A Are you surprised?B No I’m not, I’m German. B No I’m not, I’m 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 pres­entation of these important structures on grounds of difficulty.

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

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. is unknowable, or less restrictively,ii. is an unknown general group, or, less restrictively,iii. is unknown, or, less restrictively,iv. 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 men­tioned only if essential to the meaning.

The passive; (be) + third form