LEVEL 7 `THE PASSIVE VOICE (2)

1. Introduction: Passives are very abundant in English and occur more frequently than in Spanish in all kinds of contexts for several reasons: 1. Impersonality: the speaker does not want to show his implication in the sentence: Ex: Tons of rubbish is thrown out to the sea every year. 2. Focus: we want to put some emphasis on a certain part of the sentence. Ex: The entire crop was damaged by the strong winds. 2. The passive transform PASSIVE TRANSFORM, that is, how we come from an active sentence to a passive sentence. He

In other words: a Direct Object becomes the Subject of the new passive sentence and the passive auxiliaries take the tense, person and number of the active verb, then the past participle of the active verb is added:

Verb tense in active Simple present He cooks breakfast Simple Past He cooked breakfast Simple future He will cook breakfast Present Continuous She is cooking Past continuous They were cleaning the streets Present perfect They have forbidden cigarettes Past Perfect The fuel had damaged all the coast 'Have to' You have to close doors Need You don't need to finish your chores Must, will, should, can (modals) Passengers must fasten their seatbelts

Passive auxiliary: be-get

Past participle Cooked

Breakfast Is / Gets

Breakfast Was

Cooked

Breakfast will be

Cooked

Breakfast is being

Cooked

The streets were being

Cleaned

Cigarettes have been

Forbidden

All the coast had been

Damaged

Doors have to be

Closed

Your chores don't need to Finished be

Seatbelts must be/can be/would be/should be

Fastened

3. Different kinds of passive. 1. Standard passive. Any of the above sentences could serve as an example. Ex. Seatbelts must be fastened 2. Double passive: occurs whenever a verb has two objects DIRECT and INDIRECT. Passive transform takes place in two different ways. 2.1 direct object becomes the new subject:

EXERCISES 1. Write the following sentences in passive 1. They were writing all the names of the students on a list. _______________________________________________________________. 2. They serve breakfast at seven o'clock here. _______________________________________________________________. 3. 'Valencia buildings' has repaired these houses. _______________________________________________________________. 4. Everybody gave him the address. He_____________________________________________________________. 5. Carpenters used to build furniture by hand but now they don't. _______________________________________________________________. 6. Men wore hats in the old days. _______________________________________________________________. 7. Professor Johnson is marking all the exams. _______________________________________________________________. 2. Rewrite these verbs as passives, keeping them in the same tense, and 1. Someone has given him a lot of money 2. The police arrested two hundred people. 3. We check every car engine thoroughly. 4. They paid me a lot of money to do the job. 5. Fortunately, they didn't damage the machinery. 6. We have told him not to be late again.

3. Transform into passive. 1. They were cleaning the streets after the carnival. ________________________________________ 2. We will pay our bills before they cancel our accounts. ________________________________________ 3. Farmers have seen a wolf around their farms. ________________________________________ 4. We are going to take strict measures against smokers in this school.. ________________________________________. 5. A technician is fixing our computer now. ________________________________________. 6. We advise our clients to turn off their mobiles inside the theatre. ________________________________________. 7. Why did your sister pick up your daughter yesterday? Why________________________________________? 4. Transform into passive. 1. They are constantly offering her new and exciting jobs. ________________________________________. 2. You must give the teacher your personal details after the class. ________________________________________. 3. We have found her guilty of the crime. ________________________________________ 4. What time do they feed the animals? ________________________________________.