Syntactic and semantic features of passive sentences in treasure island by robert louis stevenson

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS
SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF PASSIVE
SENTENCES IN “TREASURE ISLAND” BY ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
(Đặc điểm cú pháp và ngữ nghĩa của các câu bị động trong tác phẩm
“ Đảo Giấu Vàng” của Robert Louis Stevenson)

NGUYEN THU THUY
Field: English Language
Code: 8.22.02.01
Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Van Dong

Hanoi, 2020


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report
entitled SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF PASSIVE SENTENCES
IN “TREASURE ISLAND” BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSTON submitted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English
Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been
used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2020

Nguyen Thu Thuy
Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Nguyen Thi Van Dong
Date:……………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received a great
deal of assistance, guidance and encouragement from my supervisor, my teacher,
my friends and my family.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor - the
leader of the foreign language department, Mrs Nguyen Thi Van Dong, who has
given me suggestions on how to shape the study and has continuously encouraged
as well as given me valuable advice with constructive comments during the process
of writing this graduation paper.
Next, I would like to express my gratitude to all lecturers in the Faculty of
English for their lectures and instructions which help me a lot in completing this
study.
I also would like to express my sincere thanks to my friends who have
always shared with me their interests, concerns and supports for this study.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family who has facilitated me to
complete this study.
Ha Noi, October, 2020
Student

Nguyen Thu Thuy

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .......................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ......................................................................... vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................. 65
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1
1.1. Rationale for the study ........................................................................................ 1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study ........................................................................ 2
1.3. Research questions .............................................................................................. 2
1.4. Methods of the study ........................................................................................... 2
1.5. Scope of the study ............................................................................................... 4
1.6. Significance of the study ..................................................................................... 4
1.7. Structure of the study .......................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................... 6
2.1. Previous studies ................................................................................................... 6
2.1.1. Previous studies oversea .................................................................................. 6
2.1.2. Domestic previous studies on passive structures ............................................. 7
2.2. Theoretical background ....................................................................................... 8
2.2.1. Overview of voice and passive voice in English ............................................ 8
2.2.2. Language style in novels .....................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 3: COMPARISON BETWEEN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC
FEATURES OF PASSIVE SENTENCES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN
“TREASURE ISLAND”. ......................................................................................... 18
3.1. Features of English and Vietnamese passive sentences in “Treasure Island” in
term of syntax and semantics......................................................20
3.1.1. General view of syntactic and semantic features of passive sentences in
“Treasure Island” ..........................................................................................20
3.1.2. Passive voice in semantic analysis ................................................................. 28

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3.1.3. Agents and Patients in passives ..................................................................... 28
3.1.4. Passive constructions in syntactic analysis .................................................... 35
3.1.5. Passive constructions with “bị” and “được” .................................................. 36
3.2. Similarities of English and Vietnamese passive sentences ............................... 45
3.3. Differences between English and Vietnamese in passives ............................... 46
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION................................................................................. 60
4.1. Recapitulation ................................................................................................... 60
4.2. Concluding remarks .......................................................................................... 61
4.3. Limitations of the current research ................................................................... 61
4.4. Implications for English learners and translators in learning and translating
passive sentences ...................................................................................................... 62
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................
APPENDIXES .................................................................................................................

iv


ABSTRACT
Passive sentence has been considered an interesting field from semantic and
syntactic perspectives. It is one of the issues that has never been studied
exhaustively. Being interested in passive sentences, this thesis naming “ Syntactic
and semantic features of passive sentences in ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis
Stevenson” in order to help Vietnamese learners and translators of English have
better understanding of English passive sentences. Basing on the description and
analysis of collected data of passive sentence examples in “Treasure Island” with
descriptive and contrastive methods used in combination with the qualitative and

quantitative approaches, this study aims at pointing out some various forms of
English and Vietnamese passive sentences as well as finding out the similarities
and differences between them. From those, the athor would like to show difficulties
and suggest some solutions for Vietnamese learners and translators of English in
translating and learning English passive sentences and to help them master English
passive sentences and thus improve their language acquisition.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Adj
Adj.P
N
NP
O
Pre.P
S
V
VP

: Adjective
: Adjective phrase
: Noun
: Noun Phrase
: Object
: Prepositional Phrase
: Subject
: Verb
: Verb phrase

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 2: Passive verbs in different tenses

12

Table 3.1 : Tenses of “be” in passive structures

20

Table 3.2 : Semantic roles of subjects in passive voice

56

Table 3.3: Rate of passive structures in Vietnamese materials

60

Table 3.4 : Quirk’s passive scale

61

Table 3.5 : The form of “be” passive in different tenses in “Treasure
Island”

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71


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale for the study
Passive sentence is a topic which is researched by many linguists and
concerned nowadays. Passive sentence has an important role in English, especially
in academic works where the actions take place without mentioning the doer. In
Vietnamese, vice versa, active form are preferred. In English, passive sentences are
acknowledged and used as a grammar point for teaching English, but Vietnamese
people do not often use the passive voice, and they usually change it into the active
voice. Or even when the passive sentence is used, the word order of passive
structure in Vietnamese is different from that in English.
Today, there is still a controversy of whether passive voices exist in
Vietnamese or not but nobody can deny the role of passive meaning in Vietnamese.
Although there are a lot of pages, books, chapters which have been written about
the passive sentence, many readers still have trouble explaining its usage in
understandable ways. This result has caused some misunderstanding and making
mistakes when they learn and translate English passive sentences into Vietnamese
and vice versa, especially in properly understanding English literary works.
The translation process is quite complex as it requires translators to put a lot
of thoughts on a variety of aspects beyond the materials to be translated. The
materials are not only written in different languages, but they also represent
different cultures, differ greatly in terms of linguistic, literary and socio-culture
conventions. For this reason, the author concerns a good deal with the translation of
literary works.
Among those linguistic conventions, passive sentences, in the author’s mind,
seem to cause a great deal of trouble when translating them from the source
language text into the mother tongue and vice versa. This is also the case when the
author read the novel “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Then the

author’s mind raised a question whether there exist any differences between passive
sentences in English and Vietnamese and whether those differences, if there are
any, decide on the passive sentences in terms of syntactic and semantic or their
meaning and structure are determined by other factors. All these account for the
author’s decision to have a closer look at passive sentences in English and
Vietnamese and assign the paper the title “syntactic and semantic features of
passive sentences in ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson ..

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1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
The aim of the study is to help Vietnamese learners and translators of
English passive sentences to learn and them in an effective way from semantic and
syntactic perspectives.
To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the following objectives can be put
forward:
- To identify the syntactic and semantic features of passive sentences in
English and Vietnamese .
- To make a comparison between the syntactic and semantic features of
passive sentences in English and Vietnamese in “ Treasure Island” .
- To give some suggestions for better learning and translating English
passive sentences into Vietnamese for the Vietnamese learners and translators of
English.
1.3. Research questions
To fulfill the objectives mentioned above, the study tries to seek the
answers to the following questions:
1. What are the features of English and Vietnamese passive sentences in
terms of syntax and semantics?
2. What are the similarities and differences between English and

Vietnamese passive sentences in “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson in
term of syntax and semantics?
3. What are the implications for learning and translating English passive
sentences into Vietnamese for the Vietnamese learners and translators of English?
1.4. Methods of the study
In order to complete this study, some effective and flexible combination of
several research methods will be applied for finding out the syntactic and semantic
features of English and Vietnamese passive sentences
Firstly, the descriptive method is used in the first stage. To give a deep and
detailed description of functional and structural features of English passive
sentences. These features are illustrated by a list of English passive sentences taken
from the reference grammar books written by contemporary influential linguists in
English as Quirk,R.et, Bauer, L. (1983), Plag, I. (2003) and Mgr. Marie Gajzlerová
(2007) and in “Treasure Island”

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The second qualitative research is used because according to Ary et al
(2002), the goal of qualitative research is the depth of understanding rather than the
numerical data. Moreover, “dataanalysis in qualitative research is often done
concurrently or simultaneously withdata collection through an iterative, recursive,
and dynamic process” (Ary et al,2010, p. 481). It means that the researcher also did
the data analysis whilecollecting the data. In addition, “qualitative data might be
quantitized by counting frequency a particular word is used or the number of times
a particular theme is identified” (Ary et al, 2010, p. 564). That is why the researcher
useda frequency list to expose the data in this study. This kind of study is also
calleda mixed method because the data collection is qualitative but the data analysis
isquantitative (Ary et al, 2010, p. 564).
In addition, at the end of research, the comparative and contrastive method is

used to find out the expressions of passive sentences in "Treasure Island" and also
made to identify the operating mechanism of passive sentences in English in order
that effective measures can be put forth to deal with the problems possibly arisen in
learning and translating English passive sentences.

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1.5. Scope of the study
In this study, the thesis only focuses on synatctic and semantic features of
English passive sentences extracted from “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis
Stevenson
The passive sentences analyzed in this study are those formed by two words
with the data source mainly from“Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson, not
from the dictionaries. However, the theory of passive sentences are extracted from
the reference grammar books by Quirk, R & Greenbaum, S. (1985), CharterisBlack, J (1999), Mgr. Marie Gajzlerová (2007), Lone Secher Wingreen Christensen
(2014) and“Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Moreover, the study
collects data regarding features, the use and the translation of English passive
sentences with reference to Vietnamese from the novel through survey
questionnaires, so the survey questionnaires designed in this research focus
primarily on the use of English passive sentences with reference to Vietnamese and
on reliable data and information for research from students’ habits in using English
passive sentences. The participants of the research eighty five first – years students
at Haiphong University who acted as significant means to collect the students’ most
common mistakes. This thesis aims only at providing some suggestions for
improving the learning and translating process of English passive sentences.
1.6. Significance of the study
The first significance of this research lies with the learners and translators
of English. They are provided with information on structures in relation to passives
in both languages. With the assistance of the research, they can minimize and find

ways to overcome their difficulties by themselves because any learners and
translators must have problems with structures in the process of learning and
transalting English.
Second, it can also make some contribution to contrastive analysis of
English and Vietnamese passive sentences, which is beneficial to those who study
and translate English into Vietnamese as well as to anyone who is interested in
either Vietnamese or English passivenes or both.
1.7. Structure of the study
The study consists of five chapters:

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Chapter 1, the Introduction states clearly the reasons for doing the study
and the aims, the objectives, the research questions , the methods ,the scope of the
study, the significance of the study as well as the study structure.
Chapter 2, the Literature review, gives a critical review of the previous
studies relating to the research problem under investigation and presents the
theoretical background employed as tools for conducting the whole thesis.
Chapter 3, Findings and discussion, passive sentences in “Treasure Island”
by Robert Louis Stevenson, describes and analyzes the syntactic and semantic
features of passive sentences in the novel in order to provide some possible
suggestions for improving learning - translating process of English passive
sentences for Vietnamese teachers and students of English
Chapter 4, Conclusion,gives the summary of the study. Furthermore, this
chapter also presents the limitations of the research and some suggestions for
further studies.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background as well as
relevant knowledge and summaries of previous research’s findings and conclusion
associated with the theme of the investigation. In other words, the review is to
explain several related terms and definitions as to passives, passive structures,
syntax, semantic, translation. These later would further highlight the features
conducted of the study as well as suggest an array of possible implications for
learning English expressions with passives in general and translating for
Vietnamese students at the Hai Phong University in particular.
2.1. Previous studies
2.1.1. Previous studies oversea
As regards English passives, they have been described by such a lots of
grammarians as representatives of different schools such as:
Randolph Quirk, et al (1985) dealt with active–passive transformations, get–
passives, voice constraints and the passive gradient. According to them, the voice
constraints are related to verbs, objects, agents, meanings and frequencies. He
proposes a six-class passive ‘scale’ which is reduced to a three-class passive
‘gradient’ in Quirk et al. (1985) going from ‘true’ or ‘central’ passives (verbal) to
‘pseudo-passives’ (adjectival) via ‘semi-passives’ (semi-verbal, semi-adjectival).
John Sinclair, et al (1990) described English passives from the practical point
of view. They made a comprehensive study of such subcategories as tenses, agents,
processes, verb types, get –passives and have - something –done structures.
M.A.K.Halliday (1994) first discussed when and why passives are deployed.
Then he went further to introduce different types of passives such as passives with
direct participants, passives with indirect participants, passives with analytic
causatives or Agents of the second order, and passives with secondary verbal
groups. What is more, he specifies three processes in the passives, which are
material (effective or middle passives), mental (effective or middle passives), and
relational (effective or middle passives).

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Collins (2005) presents a departure from this generally accepted approach
initiated by Chomsky. Rather than relying on transformations, Collins proposes an
analysis that sees both active-voice and passive-voice as having the same
underlying structure with regards to external argument structure. He asserts that the
passive participle suffix does not differ from the past participle suffix, citing their
identical morphology in English.
To achieve a situation whereby the external argument merges in the same
location in both active and passive constructions, Collins suggests that the passive
involves “smuggling”. This entails the movement of a constituent ‘x’, held within a
larger constituent ‘y’, across a potential barrier to x. He introduces a Part-Phrase,
containing the participle and direct object; all of which, in the passive, raises to a
second new phrase, Voice-Phrase, which has by as its head.
2.1.2. Domestic previous studies on passive structures
In passive syntax, Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1980) states that “in Vietnamese the
opposition between passive and active voices is not done through purely
grammatical ways but through lexico - grammatical ways”.
According to the author, the syntactic structure of a Vietnamese passive
sentence are as follows:
- The subject of the passive is the object of the alternative active.
- The predicate of the passive includes an auxiliary “bị” and “được” and a
transitive verb.
- The agentive subject are optional to be present in the passive.
(Hoàng Trọng Phiến, 1980: 166-67)
With regards to the point which is related to the syntactic function and
meanings of “bị” and “được”, I consider the fact that these words are grammatically
important and to some extent have lexical meanings does not exclude their function

as markers of passive relations if we look at this issue from the grammaticalization
viewpoint.
Diệp Quang Ban & Nguyễn Thị Thuận (2000) also support the existence of
passive sentences in Vietnamese. They argue that the passive voice in Vietnamese
is not marked in the form of verbs but in the form of a special syntactic construction
with established grammatical and semantic characteristics. Accordingly, they
specify the following characteristics of Vietnamese passive constructions:

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- The appropriate grammatical means for expressing passiveness in
Vietnamese are function words (được, bị) and word order.
- Verbs participating in passive constructions are transitive verbs which have
semantic relations with entities expressed by noun phrases as subjects before được,
bị.
- Passive sentences have the following structure: The subject of the passive is
assigned to the semantic roles of patient, recipient, goal, beneficiary.
In brief, according to these two authors, the passive voice in Vietnamese is
not expressed by the form of the verb, but instead by a syntactic construction with
specific grammatical and semantic characteristics.
Hoàng Văn Vân (2000) argues for the existence of the category of “voice” in
Vietnamese in terms of semantics and syntax. He asserts that the presence of “bị”
and “được” makes a clause marked, and the position of participants causes the
Goal/Medium to coincide with the unmarked Theme in a passive clause.
Nguyễn Thị Ánh (2000) argued that Vietnamese is a topic prominent, not
subject prominent language and there are no typical grammatical categories of
Passive constructions.
Having the same idea, Cao Xuân Hạo (2003) added “bị” and “được” are true
notional transitive verbs in Vietnamese, not formal words in forming Passive

sentences.
2.2. Theoretical background
2.2.1. Overview of voice and passive voice in English
2.2.1.1. Concept of voice and passive voice in English
Voice is a linguistic category that defines the relationship “between the
participants and the event indicated in the verb” (Nida 1964:200).
In an active clause, the subject is the agent responsible for performing the
action, whereas in a passive clause, the subject is an affected entity, and the agent
may or may not be specified (Baker 1992: 102)
“Voice is a grammatical category of verbs that is related to what thing or
person is acting and what thing or person is being acted upon" (Crystal, 2002).
According to Hornby (2005), voice, in terms of grammar, is the form of a
verb that shows whether the subject of a sentence performs an action (the active
voice) or is affected by it (passive voice).

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“In grammar, the voice (also called diathesis) of a verb describes the
relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants
identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). When the subject is the agent or
doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient,
target or undergo-er of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice.” (“English
Passive Voice”, 2009).
In English, the concept of voice is considered as a grammatical category. The
verb form which indicates whether the subject (person or object) of a sentence does
something or something has been done on the subject called the voice. There are
two voices in English: active and passive. In English the passive voice is the form
of a transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the patient, receiving the
action of the verb.

More specifically, passive voice is the voice used to indicate that the
grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action
denoted by the verb (Farlex, Inc., 2010).
A sentence that begins with the subject or the object to determine whether
the sentence was categorized as active or passive voice sentences. For example,
when a sentence has one auxiliary verb, such as am, are, is, been, being, be, and
past participle of verbs like written, driven, drawn, known, learnt, broken,
discovered, the sentence is a passive voice.
Passive voice is not a derivative of active voice, which is the outcome of
people’s different meaning expressions. Passive voice describes the whole process
of certain events from the patient’s point of view. It is a marked form of voice.
There are three markers in passive voice, be, -ed and by, which has its meaning and
significance respectively. Typical passive could be classified into two categories,
passive with agent and passive without agent, or, agentive passive and non-agentive
passive. In the agentive passive, the agent will not appear but will be implicit in the
context.
These are some passive-voice definitions:
“The passive voice serves to show that person/thing denoted by the subject
of the sentence is not the agent (doer) of the action expressed by the predicate verb
but is the object of this action. The subject of a passive verb does not act but it acts
upon, it undergoes an action”. (Gordon, E.M., 1972:25).

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The concept of voice in English and Vietnamese shares the common feature
of the semantic roles of the sentence subjects. If the agent is in the subject, the
sentence is active. If any component except the agent is the grammatical subject, the
sentence is the passive. The difference is in the fact that English voice is related to
verb forms while the Vietnamese voice is related to lexical and grammatical means.

2.2.1.2. Passive voice structures in English
In general, English passive voice is used to focus on the action rather than
the agent of the action because who or what is performing the action is not known
or not important. The agent can be absent from the sentence and the patient is
always located in the front position. Therefore we don’t need to describe who
performs an action in some cases but the action must be performed.
In formal approaches, the active voice, being unmarked, tends to be
negatively defined as not being passive – when indeed it is defined at all. As for the
passive voice, it tends to be assimilated to the ‘BE + past participle’ construction or,
less strictly, to clauses or sentences which contain a combination of either BE, or
GET, or some other verb ‘commutable’ with BE, and a past participle. For instance,
Sweet (1892: 112) notes that “ in English the passive is formed by combining the
finite forms of the auxiliary verb to be with the past participle of the verb’. Visser
(1973: 1788) states that ‘a ‘passive’ construction must necessarily consist of a form
of to be + past participle’.
In Quirk et al. (1985: 159 sq.), a ‘true’ passive clause is one whose VP
contains a combination of BE or GET and a past participle. A more inclusive
definition is proposed by Jespersen (1933: 85), for whom the English passive is
formed with an auxiliary, generally be, but often also get or become…, and the
second past participle.
In the grammar of English, the form of Passive voice is a popular category,
in which the object of the verb is in the position of subject. This can help us identify
passive voices. There are three markers in passive voice: be, - ed, and by, which has
its meaning and significance respectively.
• The basic structure is:
Be + past participle ( P2) (+ by + Agent)

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Passive voice with Modal verbs such as can, may, might, could, ought to,
should, had better, used to, etc. may precede the verb “be”. Modals and Auxiliary in
the passive voice:
S + Modal verb + be + P 2 + by + Agent
In passive sentences, the thing receiving the action is the subject of the
sentence and the thing doing the action is optionally included near the end of the
sentence. In a passive clause, we usually use a phrase beginning with “by” +
Objective pronoun if we want to mention the agent – the person or thing that does
the action, or that causes what happens.
The main verb is always in its past participle form. The passive verbs can
occur in different verb tenses (except present perfect progressive and past perfect
progressive). The passive verb forms can be systematized as follows:

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Table 2: Passive verbs in different tenses
Tense
Aspects

Present

Past

Future

Modal (M)

Simple

Am/Is /Are
+P2

Was/Were +
P2

Will/Shall+be+PII

M + be + P2

Progressive

Am/Is/Are +
being + P2

Was/Were +
being + P2

Perfect

Have/Has +
been + P2

Had + been +
P2

M + be + being
+ P2
Will/Shall +
have been + P2

M + have
been + P2

(“A practical English grammar” – Thomson and Martinet: 1986: 265)
• There are several criterias to classify the formation of English passive
voice. In terms of sentence pattern, passive transformations are allowed to three
following structures: S-V-O (-A); S-V-Oi-Od (-A); S-V-O-C(-A).
* Formation from S-V-O (-A) pattern:
- The object is a noun phrase: It is usually possible for the Od of the active
sentence to become S of the passive.
E.g.: She cut the cake → The cake was cut (by her).
- The object is a finite clause. We use this structure when we can’t say or
don’t mention to the speaker. There are two passive structures when the O is a finite
clause
E.g.: People thought John had paid too much
→ It was thought that John had paid too much
or: John was thought to have paid too much.
- The object is a non - finite clause (infinitive and ing-participle). The
passive analogue is rare with these verbs. However, the exceptions are with a few
verbs notably like advise, insist, recommend, suggest, agree, arrange, determine,
demand, decide, etc. the passive can be expressed by a finite clause “ V + that +…
should + P2”.
E.g.: He decided to sell the house.
→ He decided that the house should be sold.

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(Thomas & Martinet, 1986: 264)

* Formation from S-V- Oi -Od (-A) pattern
Many verbs carry two objects (Od and Oi). One is usually a concrete or
abstract thing, the other is usually a person or sometimes both of two objects are
things.
- The Oi is a noun phrase (NP), Od is a finite clause: there are two ways of
the passivation by the S of the passive being either Oi (more common) or Od in the
corresponding active sentence.
E.g.: John convinced me that he was right.
→ I was convinced (by John) that he was right
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 371)
- The Oi is a NP, the Od is a non - finite clause (to infinitive): the S of the
passive sentence is with the Oi only.
E.g.: They urged the council to reduce the rate
→ The council was urged to reduce the rate.
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 371)
- The passive sentence starts with Oi when Oi is a noun phrase, Od is a
prepositional phrase: Intransitive verbs whose Od must be introduced by a
preposition normally allow one passive, with the Oi as S:
E.g.: We reminded him of the agreement.
→ He was reminded of the agreement.
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 371)
- Idiomatic expressions consisting of “V+ NP+ Prep. + NP” such as make
allowance for, make fun of, take advantage of, make use of, keep pace with,
pay attention to, take account of, take note of, etc…: There are two passive
forms , passive sentences can have the subject of either NP.
E.g.: They had made good use of the house.
→ Good use had been made of the house.
→ The house had been made good use of.
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 371)
* Formation from S-V- O - C (-A) pattern

In this pattern, the O of active sentence is always a NP, which usually
becomes the S of the passive sentence. The differences in this structure are in
various complement types:

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

The object complement (Co) is a NP:
E.g.: She made him a good husband.
→ He was made a good husband by her.
 The object complement (Co) is an adjective phrase:
E.g: He made the girl much happier.
→ The girl was made much happier by him.
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 371)
- The object complement (Co) is an infinitive clause (to-infinitive clause):
The verbs such as like, want, love, wish that takes O in the to-infinitive
clause form their passive with the passive to-infinitive.
E.g.: She wants someone to wash the dishes.
→ She wants the dishes to be washed.
- Be supposed to do may be used in two meanings as follows:
a. Suppose in the passive can be followed by the present infinitive of any
verb but this construction usually conveys an idea of duty and is not therefore the
normal equivalent of suppose in the active: It’s someone’s duty to do something.
You are supposed to know how to drive = It is your duty to know/You
should know how to drive
b. Suppose in the passive can similarly be followed by the perfect infinitive
of any verb. This construction may convey an idea of duty but very often does not:
You are supposed to have finished = You should have finished but He is

supposed to have escaped disguised as a woman = People suppose that he escaped
etc.
In reverse, with the verbs such as recommend, beg, order, urge that contain
an O in the to-infinitive clause, the passive can be formed in two ways:
+ By making the main verb passive:
E.g.: Mary was urged to buy the tickets well in advance.
+ By structure: verb + that + …. Should
E.g.: He urged that the tickets should be bought well in advance.
 The object complement (Co) is a bare – infinitive clause:
Some verbs of perception take the bare infinitive in the active such as: feel,
hear, notice, observe, see, smell, watch… In the passive, the bare infinitive is
replaced by the to – infinitive:
E.g.: I hear them shouting something

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→ They were hurt by something.
However, the causative verbs have, make, let take a bare-infinitive in their
infinitive clauses but “make” takes to-infinitive.
E.g.: They had/let/made Bob teach Mary.
→ They had Mary taught by Bob.
→ They let Mary be taught by Bob.
→ Bob was made to teach Mary .
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 365)
- The object complement is an –ing participle clause: this is often found in
the passive transformation especially with verbs such as like, dislike, hate,
remember, forget, find...
E.g.: I watched Bob teaching Mary
→ Bob was watching Mary.

→ I watched Mary being taught by Bob.
- The object complement is an -ed participle clause.
E.g.: The tourists found the chairs occupied
→The chairs were found occupied (by the tourists)
(Quirk & Greenbaum, 1972: 367)
• Special passive structures:
- Become passive and Get passive have one common feature that is to
express the gradual changes, often enhanced by modification with more and more,
increasingly, etc..: “Get passive” is used in informal speech and writing to express:
misfortune, accomplishment, arrangement, and work completed.
E.g.: Our technique is becoming increasingly specialized.
(Quirk, R. et al: 803)
- Verb-ing form with passive meaning: (Need – Want – Deserve –
Require). This structure with passive meaning can have two forms with each verb:
“V + Ving” or “V + passive infinitive”.
E.g. 1: The batteries in this radio need changing / need to be changed.
(Murphy, 2000: 115)
E.g. 2: I do not think his article deserves reading/ deserves to be read.
(Swan.M,2000: 280)
- The causative structure: Have/ Get + O + P2. The causative structure ‘s
usage is similar to that of Be – passive, consist of two forms: “Have something

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done” and “Get something done” . They are found more in informal languages and
in all tenses. In the imperative “get’ is more natural than “have”. We use this
structure to present actions we arrange for other people to do for us. It also
describes something that unfortunately happens to someone.
E.g.: Jill had /got the roof repaired yesterday.

We are having the house painted at the moment.
I’ve just had/got my car serviced.
Get + O + P2 is found more in informal language. It can be found in all
tenses. In the imperative “Get” is more natural than ``Have”.
E.g.: Get your hair cut.
- The pseudo – passive: is a sentence active in form but passive in meaning
under certain circumstances. Pseudo – passive is the typical non –agent passive
structure, that means the doer is not mentioned. In other words, there is no By –
phrase in this special structure.
E.g. 1: The book didn’t sell well, so it wasn’t reprinted.( The book was not
sold well).
E.g. 2: These clothes can wash well. (These clothes can be washed well)

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