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I received a marked assessment from my teacher, and I think I might have been mismarked on a question. The question asks : "Identify and analyse two examples of passive in the text". One of the examples I quoted was as follows: (transcript of radio)

The Success isn't ... er ... fitted ... er ...with that type of capability.

I was marked wrong on this one, but I'm pretty sure it's passive- unless it could be interpreted as having "fitted" as an adjective referring to the state of being "fitted", in which case it would be active.

However, because of the predicate "with that capability", I have good reason to interpret "is [not] fitted" as the verb of the sentence, in which case it is passive.

Hence my post here to see if there would be any general consensus on its classification.

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  • What are the "er"s around "fitted"?
    – coldnumber
    Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 1:42
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    @ColdNumber That's how the Old World spells uh.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 2:04
  • @ColdNumber - since it's a radio transcript, there are non-fluency features.
    – zalgo
    Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 2:34
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    Contrast 'After the wheels have been attached, the bike is fitted with brakes' with 'Worryingly, early cycles were not fitted with brakes'. One is active, one stative. This difference also needs addressing. The former is unquestionably the dynamic passive.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Aug 26, 2023 at 14:39
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    See PyroTiger's Wikipedia quote at ... is entered in the race Some would consider the obviously stative reading that is virtually mandated in '... isn't fitted with...' (contrast the ambiguity with '... is fitted with...') to be towards the adjective end of the line. This construction is called a 'false passive' by some. You tell me if a false passive is a passive.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Aug 26, 2023 at 14:53

2 Answers 2

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I agree that it's passive. The active form would be something like "nobody fitted the Success with that capability".

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  • I agree, also. If "fitted" were an adjective, it could be modified by "very", but we couldn't have *"The Success was very fitted with that capability."
    – Greg Lee
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 18:21
  • I'm not sure if "The Success was very fitted with that capability" is valid or not because it's such a bizarre sentence I can't intuitively judge its grammaticality. I'd argue that "the shirt was very fitted" is fine, and "The team was very fitted to that task" is also fine. Possibly, if it is wrong, the issue is that being fitted with a capability is a binary thing that doesn't admit degrees (quite fitted, very fitted, etc).
    – Stuart F
    Commented Aug 26, 2023 at 17:44
  • How about *She was very dressed in tulle Doesn't sound passive, or veryable.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Aug 26, 2023 at 18:00
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The Success isn't fitted with that type of capability." 'is/isn't plus a past tense verb do become the main verb of a sentence. 'with' begins a prepositional phase. It is not the predicate. The sentence uses a linking verb (is/isn't) and a predicate adjective (fitted). "The candle is lit," is linking verb and pred. Adj. "The candle WAS lit (by someone)," is passive. "Success isn't guaranteed by effort."

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