The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (such as Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was defeated by our troops).
The subject of a sentence or clause featuring the passive voice typically denotes the recipient of the action (the patient) rather than the performer (the agent). The passive voice in English is formed periphrastically: the usual form uses the auxiliary verb be (or get) together with the past participle of the main verb.
For example, Caesar was stabbed by Brutus uses the passive voice. The subject denotes the person (Caesar) affected by the action of the verb. The agent is expressed here with the phrase by Brutus, but this can be omitted. The equivalent sentence in active voice is Brutus stabbed Caesar, in which the subject denotes the doer, or agent, Brutus. A sentence featuring the passive voice is sometimes called a passive sentence, and a verb phrase in passive voice is sometimes called a passive verb.
English allows a number of passive constructions which are not possible in many of the other languages with similar passive formation. These include promotion of an indirect object to subject (as in Tom was given a bag) and promotion of the complement of a preposition (as in Sue was operated on, leaving a stranded preposition).[2]
Use of the English passive varies with writing style and field. Some publications' style sheets discourage use of the passive voice,[3] while others encourage it.[4] Although some purveyors of usage advice, including George Orwell (see Politics and the English Language, 1946) and William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White (see The Elements of Style, 1919), discourage use of the passive in English, its usefulness is generally recognized, particularly in cases where the patient is more important than the agent,[5] but also in some cases where it is desired to emphasize the agent.
Identifying the English passive
The passive voice
is a specific grammatical construction; not every expression that serves to
take focus away from the performer of an action is classified as an instance of
passive voice. The essential components of the English passive voice are a form
of the auxiliary verb
be (or sometimes get[6]), and the past participle of the main verb denoting
the action. For example:
... that all men are created
equal...[7]
We have been cruelly deceived.
The captain was struck by a
missile.
I got kicked in the face during
the fight.
(For exceptions,
see Additional passive constructions below.)
The agent
(the doer of the action) may be specified, using a prepositional
phrase with the preposition by, as in the third example, but
it is equally possible to omit this, as is done in the other examples.
A distinction is
made between the above type of clause, and those of similar form in which the
past participle is used as an ordinary adjective, and the verb be or
similar is simply a copula
linking the subject of the sentence to that adjective. For example:
I am excited (right now).
This would not
normally be classed as a passive sentence, since the participle excited
is used adjectivally to denote a state, not to denote an action of excitation
(as it would in the passive the electron was excited with a laser pulse).
See Stative and adjectival uses below.
Sentences which
do not follow the pattern described above are not considered to be in the
passive voice, even if they have a similar function of avoiding or
marginalizing reference to the agent. An example is the sentence A stabbing
occurred, where mention of the stabber is avoided, but the sentence is
nonetheless cast in the active voice, with the verbal noun stabbing forming the
subject of the simple past tense of the verb occur. (Similarly There
was a stabbing.) Occasionally, however, writers misapply the term
"passive voice" to sentences of this type.[8] An example of this loose usage
can be found in the following extract from an article from The New Yorker about Bernard Madoff (bolding and italics added;
bold text indicates the verbs misidentified as passive voice):
Two sentences
later, Madoff said, "When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would
end shortly, and I would be able to extricate myself, and my clients, from
the scheme." As he read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to
use the passive voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad
weather that had descended on him . . . In most of the rest of the statement,
one not only heard the aggrieved passive voice, but felt the hand of a
lawyer: "To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the
early nineteen-nineties."[9]
The intransitive
verbs would end and began are in fact in the active voice.
Although the speaker uses the words in a manner that subtly diverts
responsibility from him, this is not accomplished by use of passive voice.[10]
Reasons for using the passive voice
The passive voice
can be used without referring to the agent of an action; it may therefore be
used when the agent is unknown or unimportant, or the speaker does not wish to
mention the agent
- Three stores were robbed last night. (the identity of the agent may be unknown)
- A new cancer drug has been discovered. (the identity of the agent may be unimportant in the context)
- Mistakes have been made on this project. (the speaker may not wish to identify the agent)
The last sentence
illustrates a frequently criticized use of the passive – the evasion of
responsibility by failure to mention the agent (which may even be the speaker
himself).[11]
Agentless
passives are common in scientific writing,
where the agent may be irrelevant:
- The mixture was heated to 300°C.
However the
passive voice can also be used together with a mention of the agent, using a by-phrase.
In this case the reason for use of the passive is often connected with the
positioning of this phrase at the end of the clause (unlike in the active
voice, where the agent, as subject, normally precedes the verb). Here, in
contrast to the examples above, passive constructions may in fact serve to
place emphasis on the agent, since it is natural for information being
emphasized to come at the end:
- Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his own doctor![12]
In more technical
terms, such uses can be expected in sentences where the agent is the focus (comment,
rheme), while the patient (the undergoer of the action) is the topic
or theme[5] (see Topic–comment). There is a tendency for
sentences to be formulated so as to place the focus at the end, and this can
motivate the choice of active or passive voice:
- My taxi hit an old lady. (the taxi is the topic, the lady is the focus)
- My mother was hit by a taxi. (the mother is the topic, the taxi is the focus)
Similarly, the passive
may be used because the noun phrase denoting the agent is a long one
(containing many modifiers),
since it is convenient to place such phrases at the end of a clause:
- The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans, two researchers in the university's genetic engineering lab.[11]
In some
situations, the passive may be used so that the most dramatic word, or
punchline, appears at the end of the sentence.
Passive constructions
Canonical passives
In the most
commonly considered type of passive clause, a form of the verb be (or
sometimes get) is used as an auxiliary together with the past participle of a transitive verb; that verb is missing its direct object, and the patient of
the action (that which would be denoted by the direct object of the verb in an
active clause) is denoted instead by the subject of the clause. For example,
the active clause:
- John threw the ball.
contains threw
as a transitive verb with John as its subject and the ball as its
direct object. If we recast the verb in the passive voice (was thrown),
then the ball becomes the subject (it is "promoted" to the subject
position) and John disappears:
- The ball was thrown.
The original
subject (the agent) can
optionally be re-inserted using the preposition by.
- The ball was thrown by John.
The above example
uses the verb be (in the past tense form was) to make the
passive. It is often possible to use the verb get as an alternative
(possibly with slightly different meaning); for example, the active sentence
"The ball hit Bob" may be recast in either of the following forms:
- Bob was hit by the ball.
- Bob got hit by the ball.
The auxiliary
verb of the passive voice (be or get) may appear in any
combination of tense, aspect and mood,
and can also appear in non-finite
form (infinitive, participle or gerund). See the article on English verb forms
for more information. Notice that this includes use of the verb be in progressive aspect,
which does not normally occur when be is used as a simple copula.
Some examples:
- The food is being served. (present progressive passive)
- The stadium will have been built by next January. (future perfect passive)
- I would have got injured if I had stayed in my place. (conditional perfect passive with get)
- It isn't nice to be insulted. (passive infinitive)
- Having been humiliated, he left the stage. (passive present participle, perfect aspect)
Promotion of indirect objects
Unlike some other
languages, English also allows passive clauses in which an indirect object, rather than a direct
object, is promoted to the subject. For example:
- John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book (by John).
In the active
form, gave is the verb; John is its subject, Mary its
indirect object, and a book its direct object. In the passive forms, the
indirect object has been promoted and the direct object has been left in place.
(In this respect, English resembles dechticaetiative
languages.)
It is normally
only the first-appearing object that can be promoted; promotion of the indirect
object takes place from a construction in which it precedes the direct object
(i.e. where there is no to or for before the indirect object),
whereas promotion of the direct object in such cases takes place from a
construction in which the indirect object follows the direct (this time being
accompanied by to or for; see English grammar: Verb
phrases). For example:
- John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book. (and not normally: ??A book was given Mary.)
- John gave a book to Mary. → A book was given to Mary. (and not: *Mary was given a book to.)
Similar
restrictions apply to the prepositional passive, as noted in the following
section.
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perubahan pada kalimat passive
Refferensi : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice
Buku rangkuman bahasa inggris SMA penerbit gagas media karangan
Elang Yudhantoro
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