passive, the grammatical subject of the sentence is not the doer of the action but
rather being acted upon the recipient and the action. It can be said that the focus of
the sentence is not the doer of the action but the recipient.
In the second sentence active sentence the writer talked about someone, someone
who performs the action stolen, someone is the doer of the action and it is
positioned as the grammatical subject of the sentence, compared with the sentence below:
3. My laptop was stolen
The third sentence talked about my laptop, the sentence showed that the focus of the sentence is changed from someone to my laptop; actually, my laptop
is the recipient of the stolen action. Because the sentence is changed into passive, my laptop
became the grammatical subject and someone which is unnamed in the
sentence, because in passive voice it is not necessary to mention the doer if it is not obvious, this issue will clearly discusses in the subtitled 2; the usage of passive
voice became the grammatical object of the sentence. The sentence is passive because the subject is not doing anything, even
though it is the grammatical subject of the sentence. The subject of passive sentence is still the focus of the sentence but something else performs the action.
It amount to this that the usage of passive voice is when the speaker want to emphasize the action and the recipient as the focus of the sentence. While the the
formula of passive voice itself will be explained in the following section.
2. The Form of Passive Voice
As the writer knows the formulation of passive voice is consisting of two important elements, the main verb in a passive sentence is always past participle,
while be form and auxiliary is always to be.
To be Past Participle
The form of to be used in a passive voice depend on the subject and tense that is required by the sentence. The next table shows the uses of passive voice in some
tenses.
Adapted from grammar.ccc.commnet and modifying by the writer
Only a sentence that containing transitive verb verb that takes direct object; object that receive the action that can be convert from the active voice into the
passive one or vice versa. Why only transitive verbs? Because to form a passive voice the speaker needs direct object that become the grammatical subject in the
passive voice, while intransitive verbs do not have it.
Tenses Passive Voice
Passive Sentence
Infinitive To be
cleaned The table need to be cleaned
Simple Present
It is cleaned. The table is cleaned every morning
Past It was cleaned.
The table was cleaned yesterday Future
It will be cleaned The room will be cleaned soon
Conditional It would be cleaned
The room would be cleaned
Continuous Present
It is being cleaned The room is being cleaned
Past It was being cleaned
The room was being cleaned Future
It will be being cleaned The room will be being cleaned
Conditional It would be being cleaned
The room would be cleaned
Perfect simple
Present It has been cleaned
The room has been cleaned Past
It had been cleaned The room had been cleaned
Future It will have been cleaned
The room will have been cleaned Conditional
It would have been cleaned The room would have been cleaned
Perfect continuous
Present It has been being cleaned
The room has been being cleaned Past
It had been being cleaned The room had been being cleaned
Future It will have been being cleaned
The room will have been being cleaned Conditional
It would have been being cleaned The room would have been being cleaned
Table 2.1 Passive Voice with Most Possible Tenses
To make the statement clear, lets’ see the examples
16
below: 1.
The train from Gambir arrived four hours late.
The intransitive verb arrived takes no direct object, and the noun four hours late
acts as an adverb modifying the train arrival, many verbs can be transitive or
intransitive depend on their context in the sentence. In the first sentence, the
speaker chooses arrived as an intransitive verb, here are the other examples:
2. According to the instruction, we must leave this conditioner in our
hair for 20 minutes.
The verb leave in the second sentence takes a direct object this conditioner,
so the sentence can be changed into passive like in the third sentence. Compare with
the use of leave in following sentence:
3. We would like to stay longer, but we must leave.
17
The verb leave in the sentence takes no direct object, while the speaker need
direct object to change the active verb into the passive one. To change the active voice into the passive one, firstly, the speaker needs to
identify the subject and object of the sentence, for example: 4.
Leonardo da Vinci painted the Monalisa.
Leonardo da Vinci and Monalisa are the subject and object of the fourth
sentence. Then reverse the position, the subject in the active sentence become the object in the passive and the object of active sentence become the subject in the
passive. The main verb of the sentence is painted. Because the verb 2 of paint is painted
similar to its past participle form, so the speaker use painted as the past participle in the next, add to be which is suitable with subject of the sentence above,
in this case is simple past tense. Because the subject is Monalisa and the tense is past so the proper to be is was. The last step; change the past tense verb verb 2 in
the active sentence with the past participle verb verb 3. It is important to note that the speaker can mention the doer if necessary, the form is by + the noun or
pronoun.
16
Heather MacFadyen, Transitive and Intransitive Verbs, http:www.arts.uottawa.cawritcenthypergrammartrnsintr.html, accessed on June 2
nd
, 2010
The passive sentence from the active sentence above is: 5.
The Monalisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Passive sentence can contains of two objects, these are the example of passive
sentence with two object:
Table 2. 2 Active sentence with two objects:
Subject Verb 2 Object 1 Object 2 Noneng
sent an email to me
Adapted from www.umw.edu and modifying by the writer
Table 2. 3 Passive sentence with two objects:
Subject To be Past
participle Object 1 Object 2
An email
was sent
to me by
Noneng
Adapted from www.umw.edu and modifying by the writer
In passive sentence with two objects, one object act as subject and another remained as object.
3. The Usage of Passive Voice
