Structure of active and passive voice

Back to: Welcome to Class !! We are eager to have you join us !! In today’s English Language class, We will be learning about Active and Passive Voices. We hope you enjoy the class! Structure: Active and Passive Voices CONTENT An active sentence is one in which the subject performs an action or does something. In this case, the sentence follows the normal order of the subject, verb and object or subject and predicate. Examples: Bola\ kicked\ the ball. Tunde \visits\ a doctor\ every month. I\ ate \ yam\ yesterday. The children\ are playing\. Football. All the sentences above are in the active voice. A passive sentence is realized when the object takes the position of the subject, i.e when the object is mentioned first before the subject. Often times, passive sentences are used: When we do not know the subject or performer of the action, e.g. The book was stolen yesterday. When the subject is not that important: Examples: The rice is then boiled for twenty-five minutes. —— When the performer/subject is known by everybody. The evening news is read at 6 pm Examples of passive sentences are: A song was composed by Tayo The students were flogged by the teacher They will be taken home by her. Changing Active Sentences to Passive Ones. To do this, some changes take place: • The active object becomes a passive subject • The active subject becomes agentive adverbial introduced with the preposition ‘by’ • An appropriate form of auxiliary ‘BE’ is introduced before the main verb Now ch...

Voice describes the relationship between a verb and the subject and object associated with it. • Active voice: the subject of a sentence is followed by the verb and then the object of the verb (e.g., “the children ate the cookies”). • Passive voic e: the object of the verb is followed by the verb (usually a form of “to be” + past participle + the word “by”) and then the subject (e.g., “the cookies were eaten by the children”). If the subject is omitted (e.g., “the cookies were eaten”), it may result in confusion about who performed the action (did the children eat the cookies, or was it the dog?). Both the active and the passive voice are permitted in APA Style. However, writers often overuse the passive voice. • Use the active voice as much as possible to create direct, clear, and concise sentences, especially when you are writing about the actions of people. • Use the passive voice when it is more important to focus on the recipient of an action than on who performed the action, such as when describing an experimental setup.

As previously stated, the passive voice in English is formed by combining a form of the verb to be with the past participle of a transitive verb. Its overall structure and its contrast with the active voice is probably easier to see if they are displayed in a paradigm of traditional English verb tenses. Simple Tenses Active Voice, Passive Voice to stop, to be stopped I stop, I am stopped I stopped, I was stopped I will stop, I will be stopped I would stop, I would be stopped to have stopped, to have been stopped I have stopped, I have been stopped I had stopped, I had been stopped I will have stopped, I will have been stopped I would have stopped, I would have been stopped Theoretically, passive voice constructions can appear in any tense, but in actual practice with "progressive tense forms," they seem to be confined mostly to the present and past tenses. (Progressive tense forms involve the verb be plus a main verb in -ing.) Progressive Tenses Active Voice, Passive Voice I am stopping, I am being stopped I was stopping, I was being stopped Modal Auxiliary Verbs Passive voice constructions can also be used with "modal auxiliary verbs" (can, might, etc.), such as in the following examples: Active Voice, Passive Voice I can stop, I can be stopped I could stop, I could be stopped I may stop, I may be stopped I might stop, I might be stopped I must stop, I must be stopped I should stop, I should be stopped Notice that the passive voice constructions always appear after the mo...