English passive voice

Common card · No. 488149

In English, the passive voice is marked by using be or get followed by a past participle. For example: The enemy was defeated. Caesar was stabbed. The recipient of a sentence's action is referred to as the patient. In sentences using the active voice, the subject is the performer of the action—referred to as the agent. Above, the agent is omitted entirely, but it may also be included adjunctively while maintaining the passive voice: The enemy was defeated by our troops. Caesar was stabbed by Brutus. The initial examples rewritten in the active voice yield: Our troops defeated the enemy. Brutus stabbed Caesar. The English passive voice typically involves forms of the verbs to be or to get followed by a passive participle as the subject complement—sometimes referred to as a passive verb. English allows a number of additional passive constructions that are not possible in many other languages with analogous passive formations to the above. A sentence's indirect object may be promoted to...

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