THE PASSIVE VOICE

In contrast to the Croatian language, passive forms are very often used in the English language, especially in scientific writing. This is because the emphasis in science is usually on the action, not on the person performing the action. The sentence is active if the subject performs the action. It is passive if the subject receives the action. For example: Nikola Tesla invented the induction motor. active - subject Nikola Tesla is the doer/performer of the action The induction motor was invented by Nikola Tesla. - passive - subject the induction motor is not the performer of the action but it suffers the action. Passive verb forms - we normally make passive forms of a verb by using tenses of the auxiliary verb "be" + past participle (PP) Simple Present: am/is/are + PP Present Continuous: am/is/are being + PP Present Perfect Simple: have/has been + PP Simple Past: was/were + PP Past Continuous: was/were being + PP Past Perfect Simple: had been + PP Will Future: will be + PP Modal verbs: can/could/ may/might/should etc. + be + PP The Present Perfect Continuous and the Past Perfect Continuous are rarely used. Changes in the sentence pattern The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence. The active verb form is put into the appropriate passive verb form, which corresponds to the tense of the active sentence. The subject of the active sentence becomes the by-agent. Subject Verb Object (acc) Nikola Tesla invented the induction motor. active Subject Verb by-agent The induction motor was invented by Nikola Tesla. - passive

By-agent We usually use the by-agent to introduce the agent the person or thing that does the action, or that causes what happens. However, the by-agent is very often left out (if the subject is unknown or unimportant), especially in scientific and academic writing, because we are often not interested in the performer of the action. For example: Nikola Tesla invented the induction motor. active The induction motor was invented by Nikola Tesla. passive Scientists classify mercury as a metal. active Mercury is classified as a metal. passive; the by-agent is optional is this case NOTE: Agents can also be determined by asking the question How?. A how-agent indicates purpose, intent or a desired goal (prepositions by, with and by means of), whereas a by-agent simply indicates that something happened, e.g. The man was killed by a stone. The man was killed with a stone. Verbs with two objects Many verbs, such as give, send, show, lend, pay, promise, refuse, tell, offer, etc. can be followed by two objects, an indirect object and a direct object. In such cases two structures are possible: For example: Object (ind) Object (dir) She gave her sister the car. - active Her sister was given the car. - passive The car was given to her sister. - passive NOTE: The first of these is much more usual, i.e. the indirect object usually becomes the subject of the passive verb. If the indirect object is a personal pronoun in dative (me, you, him, her, us, you, them), it goes into the nominative in the passive sentence.

He gave

Object(dat) Object (acc) me a book. - active

Subject(nom) I was given a book. - passive Verbs with prepositions like look after (brinuti se), look at (gledati), listen to (sluati), pay for (platiti), etc. keep these prepositions in the passive. For example: We have looked at the plan carefully. active The plan has been carefully looked at. passive Nobody listens to her. active She is never listened to. - passive But: They threw stones at him. Stones were thrown at him. (not: *He was thrown stones at.) They poured water on us. - Water was poured at us. (not: *We were poured water on.) Verbs not used in the passive Passive structures are impossible with intransitive verbs (verbs not followed by an object), because there is nothing to become the subject of the passive sentence. Some transitive verbs, too, are seldom used in the passive. Most of these are stative verbs (verbs which refer to states, not actions), e.g. fit, have, lack, resemble, suit, etc. For example: They have a nice house. active *A nice house is had by them.

NOTE: The passive structure is not very typical of the Croatian language. That is why the English passive sentences are often translated with Croatian active sentences or reflexive verbs.