English passive voice

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This article is about the structure, meaning and usage of the passive voice in the English language.

Contents

1 Structure
2 Usage
3 Ambiguity of ''Be'' + Past Participle
4 Notes

Structure

Morphologically, the English passive voice is a periphrastic construction consisting of a form of the auxiliary verb be and the past participle of a transitive verb, as illustrated by the following sentences (passives in bold).

Often people are helped by their neighbors after fires.
Her car was scratched by another in the parking lot.
Many will be killed if there is a revolution.
This article has been judged unsatisfactory.

Ditransitive verbs permit a passive accompanied by a direct object. In the first of the following sentences, "sent" is a verb in the active voice; "was sent" is its passive equivalent:

Someone sent a present to her. or Someone sent her a present.
A present was sent (to her by someone).
She was sent a present (by someone).

Usage

Many usage guides and teachers of English discourage the use of the passive voice because it is believed to obscure the agent or to create unnecessary ambiguitySee for example The Elements of Style..

The passive voice may lead to vagueness, or it may obscure the cause but not the effect: e.g., Mistakes were made instead of I made mistakes. But this 'bureaucratic passive' usage may be very effective when a writer/speaker intentionally wishes to avoid mentioning the party responsible for (or affected by) an untoward occurrence (e.g., 'Taxes were raised,' 'Difficulties were encountered'). In other cases, the passive voice is less awkward and the active voice would rarely be used, possibly because the agent is implied (He was born on August 1 rather than his mother gave birth to him on August 1). Sometimes, the passive voice is preferable because a writer wishes to place or maintain emphasis on the patient of the action, not for purposes of deception or concealment, but simply as a matter of style. In such cases, the agent may also be obvious, or explicitly supplied with a by X construction later on. In related cases, the passive may be used to mainitain better 'old/new information flow': i.e., if the patient is known from previous context, but the agent (etc.) is new information. Compare the following:

Another highly valuable precious metal is gold. In prehistoric times, people first discovered this metal.

Another highly valuable precious metal is gold. This metal was first discovered in prehistoric times.

Some people would consider the second pair of sentences to 'flow' better since 'this metal,' referring to 'gold' (i.e., the 'old' information in sentence 2), appears closer to the front of the sentence, more logically connecting it with the previous context and easing the transition to all the newer information about gold, which comes afterward.

The passive voice is still commonly used in formal and business communications. Particularly in journalistic writing, science writing and law, the passive voice is often considered normal, rather than a sign of deception. Similarly, in scientific writing it is sometimes more convenient to use the passive voice with an implied agent, for example: The error was found to result from contamination instead of We found the error to result from contamination. However, contemporary scientific writing is increasingly using the active voice, usually with “we” as the subject.

Ambiguity of Be + Past Participle

The common use of past participles as adjectival complements with be as a linking verb leads to ambiguity between this construction and the passive. Thus They were married ten years ago is ambiguous in that it describes either an event (a couple was joined in matrimony by an authorized party) or a state resulting from such an event.

Although usually resolved by context, such ambiguity can be avoided by rewording or by adding omitted information:

They were (already) married (when I met them) ten years ago. (state reading)
They were married ten years ago (in a civil ceremony/by a justice of the peace).

Notes

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