UNIT
24
The passive (2)
‘WHO / WHAT... BY?’ QUESTIONS • In passive questions starting with who / what the focus is on the agent of the action. This type of question is typically completed by the preposition by, which often closes the sentence.
ACTIVE QUESTIONS Who makes these beautiful handbags? Who painted ‘The Last Supper’? Who will write the speech for the bridegroom? What hit the roof during the storm?
PASSIVE QUESTIONS Who are these beautiful handbags made by? Who was ‘the Last Supper’ painted by? Who will the speech for the bridegroom be written by? What was the roof hit by during the storm?
PASSIVE FORM WITH INDIRECT OBJECT • In English we can also use the Indirect Object of an active sentence as the subject of a passive one. Look at the structure of two active sentences with a Direct Object and an Indirect Object: Subject They
Verb gave
Indirect Object (IO) us
Direct Object (DO) a faster car
Rest of the sentence
We
will send
Mr Bates
a new password
soon
• When there are both DO and IO, the passive sentence can be made in two ways. • As a rule, it is preferable to use the Indirect Object as the subject of a passive sentence. • When you use DO as the subject of the passive sentence, you must remember to put TO + Indirect Object. We were given a faster car. OR A faster car was given to us. Mr Bates will be sent a new password soon. OR A new password will be sent to Mr Bates soon. PASSIVE FORM WITH VERB + PREPOSITION • In the passive sentence, with verbs followed by a preposition, the preposition is kept close to the verb, as in the examples below: Has anybody paid for these drinks? I don’t like it when people laugh at me.
Have these drinks been paid for? I don’t like being laughed at.
VERBS OFTEN USED IN THE PASSIVE FORM + TO infinitive • be allowed to Were you allowed to go to bed after 10pm as a child? • be supposed to Aren’t teachers supposed to be in class by 8 AM? • be expected to I’m not expected to tolerate this every day. • be told / asked to I was told not to leave the room for any reasons.
62
