> What is the difference in meaning between *got* and *was given*? 

> I understand that *got* is in the active voice, *was given* is in the passive voice, and that they are different verbs. But what is the difference when they mean *received*?

*Was given* is much more specific than *got*, since *got* doesn't mean "received" specifically, but rather "received or obtained". Consider these examples, where "got" could be replaced with "obtained", but not with "received" nor "was given":

- I got the answer by subtracting *A* from *B*.
- I got it for $5.
- I got it at the supermarket.

Because of this, there are also cases where we can only use *was given*, because although *got* theoretically covers that semantic space, it is too vague to be used that way without clarification. For example:

- I was given that *m* > *n*, and had to prove that *m*<sup>2</sup> > *n*<sup>2</sup>.

Even in the narrower class of cases where *got* and *received* do both work, *was given* does not always work:

- I got the idea from a book I once read.

And of course, the subject of *was given* sometimes denotes the item being transferred, rather than the recipient:

- The book was given to her as a present.

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> Also, does *to get* have a passive voice? Since it functions as the passive voice of *to give*, it doesn't make sense for it to have its own passive voice. I cannot think of any context that "was got" or "was gotten" aren't simply wrong.

I don't buy into this premise that "it functions as the passive voice of *to give*"; it takes a direct object, ergo it's not functioning as a passive voice. The semantic role (theta role) of the subject of *get* is similar to that of the indirect object of *give*, but that doesn't mean that one verb functions as a form of the other. You might as well say that *received* functions as the past tense of *get*, and that *having* functions as the gerund-participle of *possess*, and . . . well, you get the idea. They're just separate verbs.

But to answer your question: yes, *get* has a passive voice, though it was never terribly common, and is much rarer now than it was a hundred years ago; see [the Google Ngram Viewer results for "be gotten"](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=be+gotten&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbe%20gotten%3B%2Cc0).