Transcript Common Difficulties - Passive

Common Difficulties
1. When to use the passive voice
2. Adjective vs. Passive
3. Middle Voice
1. When to use the passive voice
A. Most languages in the world use different
voices to put different constitutes in initial
position. In the Bantu languages, the passive
voices are used if the agent is inanimate and
the receiver is animate.
e.g.) The election bothered Nancy.
Nancy was bothered by the election. (o)
1. When to use the passive voice
B. The subject is negatively affected by the
action portrayed in the verb(Adversative
passive voice). Japanese students may puzzle
over when to use the passive voice in English.
e.g.)John
ga
ame ni fur-are-ta.
John (topic marker) rain by fall.
John was fallen by rain.
Adjective vs. Passives
• A past participle can function as a passive verb
and adjective in a sentence.
• How to distinguish the passive participle from
the adjective at a sentence-level?
The use of by with a noun phrase to mark an
gent in the passive voice.
e.g.) The beans were refried. by someone(passive)
(adjective)
Adjective vs. Passives
Not all adjectival and passive participle pairs are
pronounced the same.
The suspect was alleged to have taken the money. /əlé
The alleged thief…
/əlédƷid/
3. Middle Voice
• English allows a representation of processes in
terms of actions and happening. In other
words, English uses active, passive, and
middle voices in order to express processes.
• English uses ergative, or change-of-state verbs
to express spontaneous occurrences.
3. Middle Voice
Ergative verbs( meaning change-of-state)
Cooking
Physical movement
Involving Vehicles
Etc.
Bake, boil, cook,
defrost, fry, roast,
thicken, etc.
Move, rock, shake,
spin, swing, turn,
etc.
Drive, fly, park,
reverse, run, sail,
etc.
Shatter, age, begin,
bend, break, burst,
change, close, cool,
condense,
decrease, develop,
etc.
-I’m baking a cake.
-The cake is baking.
-They cake is being
baked by her
friends.
-The boy spun the
top.
-The top spun.
-The top was spun
by the boy.
-She drove the car.
-The car drives well.
-The car was driven
all the way to
Tallahassee.
-Someone broke
the window.
-The window was
broken.
-The window broke.
3. Middle Voice
• The middle voice can also be expressed by
intransitive verbs that take the focus of the
process as subjects. However, they do not occur in
the passive voice since intransitive verbs have no
transitive counterparts.
Intransitive Verbs
Occurnace
Inherently Directed
Motion
Description
Happen, occur, take place
Arrive, fall, rise, emerge,
go
Appear, disappear, vanish
The incident occurred
before anyone knew what
was happening.
The dough rose.
The trail disappear into
the woods.
Difficulties related to Middle Voice
A. When the “change-of-state” sentences are preferred to
passive sentences?
1) When the focus is on the change of state and the agent is
irrelevant.
The bank closes at 5. p.m.
2) When the writer’s or speaker’s objective is to create an
aura of mystery of suspense. That is, when things seem to
be happening without the intervention of an agent.
We were sitting quietly after dinner, when suddenly the
door opened.
3)When the subject is something so fragile or unstable that it
can break, change, dissolve, and so on without any
apparent intervention on the part of any agent.
Left hanging on the fence, the red balloon suddenly burst.
Difficulties related to Middle Voice
4) When it is natural to expect to occur (based
on physical, social, or psychological laws).
The ice on the pond melted earlier than usual.
5) When there are so many possible causes for a
change of state that it would be misleading to
imply a single agent.
Prices increased due to a variety factors.
Difficulties related to Middle Voice
B. Which verbs are ergative?
Many of the old buildings in the center of town
have recently demolished. (X)
C. Intransitive verbs cannot occur in the passive
voice.
The accident was happened last night.
D. Wrong instruction: Some Chinese students have
been taught that sentences with grammatical
subjects that are not the agent require the
passive in English. Students will need to learn
about the middle voice.