Grammar project
Fiche de lecture : Grammar project. Recherche parmi 298 000+ dissertationsPar weixuancheng911 • 9 Octobre 2017 • Fiche de lecture • 2 655 Mots (11 Pages) • 604 Vues
GRAMMAR PROJECT
The passive voice
Part 1: RULES:
We use a form of be + past participle of the verb. The object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb.
They buy their clothes in the sales.[pic 1][pic 2]
Active verb+ object
Their clothes are bought in the sales.[pic 3][pic 4]
Subject+ passive verb
We don’t usually repeat the same subject and form of be in a sentence:
The cars are take to the port, (the cars are) loaded onto ships and (they are) sent to their destinations.
ACTIVE | PASSIVE | ||
Simple present/past | Are + p.p. Was+p.p. | They import all the clothes from China. Did she buy this dress? | All the clothes are imported from China. Was her dress bought by herself? |
Continuous tenses | Are being+p.p. Were being+p.p. | Somebody’s washing her jeans. They weren’t selling those toys last year. | Her jeans are being washed. Those toys weren’t being sold last year. |
Perfect tenses | Have been+p.p. Had been+p.p. | I haven’t ironed your shirt yet. People had seen these things before. | Your shirt hasn’t been ironed yet. These things had been seen before. |
Future tense | Will be + p.p. Is going to be+p.p. | They will post the results tomorrow. I’m not going to finish my homework today. | The results will be posted tomorrow. My homework isn’t going to be finished today. |
-ing forms | Being + p.p. | I hate people yelling at me. | I hate being yelled at. |
Note: In spoken and informal written English, we sometimes use a form of get instead of be to form the passive. We can only do this to describe actions.
Did he get beaten up?
We got stuck in the elevator for an hour.
If we want to say who or what does the action, we use by + noun. We usually put this at the end of the sentence:
Did you buy that sweater from a shop or was it knitted by your mother?
There are many verbs that do not have an object. These verbs (arrive, come, grow up, happen, wait) cannot be made passive:
I was grown up in Montreal.[pic 5]
I grew up in Montreal.
The verb born is always passive:
I was born in 1998.
Part 2: REASONS FOR USING THE PASSIVE
We often use the passive when we want to talk about an action rather than the person. We do this when:
It doesn’t matter who does the action:
The votes will be counted at the end of the meeting.
We know or can guess who does the action:
I brought my car to your garage yesterday. Has it been repaired yet? ( by the garage)
We want to talk about general feelings or beliefs:
The building is believed to date from the 18th century.
We want to be polite:
Have your homework been done yet? (more polite than Have you done your homework yet?)
Part 3: WHY IS THE PASSIVE VOICE SIGNIFICANT?
Passives are very common in writing English as we can find out in the first chapter of the novel The Great Gatsby. The reason for that is that many authors prefer to start a sentence with known information and put new information at the end which the passive allow them to do.
She wore an amazing wedding dress. It was designed by Gatsby himself.[pic 6][pic 7][pic 8]
Known information new information
The lectors generally don’t like to put a long subject before the verb, so the authors often use the passive to move the subject towards the end of the sentence.
(the low prices on a selection of summer suits in the shop window attracted us.)
We were attracted by the low prices on a selection of summer suits in the shop window.
Part 4: EXERCICES:
1. Rewrite these sentences, using passive forms. Begin with the underlined word.
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