The
passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a
"voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an
active sentence (such as Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject
of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was defeated by our troops). Passive
voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not
known, however, who or what is performing the action.
Example:
My car was stolen.
In
the example above, the focus is on the fact that my car was stolen. I do not
know, however, who did it.
Form of Passive
Subject
+ finite form of to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs)
Example:
A car was stolen.
When
rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following:
- the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence
- the finite form of the verb is changed (to be + past participle)
- the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped)
Examples of Passive
|
Tense
|
Subject
|
Verb
|
Object
|
|
Simple Present
|
A
car
|
is
driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Simple Past
|
A
car
|
was
driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Present Perfect
|
A
car
|
has
been driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Future I
|
A
car
|
Will
be driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Hilfsverben
|
A
car
|
can
be driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Tense
|
Subject
|
Verb
|
Object
|
|
Present Progressive
|
A
car
|
is
being driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Past Progressive
|
A
car
|
was
being driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Past Perfect
|
A
car
|
had
been driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Future II
|
A
car
|
will
have been driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Conditional I
|
A
car
|
would
be driven
|
by
John.
|
|
Conditional II
|
A
car
|
would
have been driven
|
by
John.
|
Source
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/passive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice
