52
votes
Accepted
Is there such a thing as a future infinitive in English?
In tenses where we can't use auxiliary verbs, will is replaced by going to:
John is said to be going to leave for good.
However, most of the time we'd just use the present continuous, even though it'...
- 87.7k
23
votes
Accepted
Is “This room was slept in by Milton” grammatical even though ‘sleep’ is an intransitive verb?
ᴛʟᴅʀ: Yes, this construction is perfectly grammatical* in English, and perfectly common as well. There are subtle restrictions on it, however, so not all such transforms produce things that sound ...
- 134k
19
votes
Are there only active and passive voices in English?
If I throw a ball at someone; that is active.
Correct. Throw a ball is an active predicate.
If someone throws a ball at me - and it hits me in the face; that is passive.
Incorrect. Throw a ball ...
- 107k
15
votes
"Wish" in the Passive
“He is wished to be here” is marginally grammatical, but in practise very unlikely.
Although he may be cast in the “object” case with an infinitival complement (I wish him to ...
- 68.7k
14
votes
Is there such a thing as a future infinitive in English?
Future Infinitives?
I don’t mean to detract from the clarity and correctness of Peter Shor’s answer. You should use what he said to use here. I’d like to address the theoretical notion of “future ...
- 134k
11
votes
Accepted
Can the continuous form be combined with the passive voice?
The first site is wrong:
He has been being treated for imbecility for almost twenty years and has not yet recovered his wits.
In 2007 he had been being treated for imbecility for ten years and had ...
- 68.7k
11
votes
Accepted
Are there only active and passive voices in English?
I think it would be best to avoid trying to talk about meaning in terms of voice at all. It's confusing, like talking about time reference in terms of "tense", because people often use terms like "...
- 80.3k
9
votes
What's the reason for using the ‘passive voice’?
There are two styles of passive. We can have long passives which mention the agent:
I was robbed by a clown.
Or we can have short passives that don't tell us who the agent is at all:
I was robbed.
...
- 45.1k
8
votes
Is this passive voice misuse?
Ignore it. This is the outcome of rule creep: gradually escalating sound syntactical advice into a senseless grammatical "rule".
Level 1: Overuse of the passive can definitely be a stylistic vice (...
- 68.7k
7
votes
Accepted
How to use Present Perfect Continuous in Passive form?
To begin with the active sentence is not strictly grammatical. It needs to have I have or an it's between and and not. But that is not particularly important as it doesn't affect the main point.
...
- 64.5k
7
votes
"got engaged" vs. "became engaged"
This is the Get-Passive, a variant of the Be-Passive. The difference is explained in the link.
Get is the inchoative form of be, so it already means come to be, or become; there's no difference.
Both ...
- 107k
7
votes
Is "Let's get started" passive voice or not?
In the expression "Let's get started," started functions as a participial adjective.
an adjective that is a participle in origin and form, such as burned, cutting, engaged.
Consider the phrase
...
- 22.3k
7
votes
Is "Let's get started" passive voice or not?
Let's leave out the Let's, shall we? It just adds another idiom to contend with.
Get started is a normal causative/inchoative use of get.
Since get can be the causative/inchoative of either be or ...
- 107k
7
votes
Accepted
Passive voice in academic writing; why is it not recommended?
In any type of writing—academic or informal or anything in between—passive voice can be used. As was noted in the posted question, in a number of word processing programs any passive constructions are ...
- 161k
6
votes
Use of aux. "be" with "got" for passive?
There's a difference between "past tense" and "past participle". When you're forming the passive voice, you use the past participle.
In British English, the past tense and past participle are the ...
- 4,210
6
votes
Accepted
Isn't "to be mistaken" ambiguous?
The confusion arises from the vagaries of English vocabulary and from two similar syntactic forms. Forms first.
Subject Copulative-verb Nominative-Complement
A copulative (or linking) verb is a ...
- 44.6k
6
votes
Passive voice in academic writing; why is it not recommended?
@SvenYarg's answer here and particularly his fuller one on the page linked to in the OP's question are a good analysis of when the active is to be preferred to the passive, and vice versa.
Just a ...
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6
votes
Is this considered a passive voice misuse?
Do not slavishly follow the advice of grammar checkers. Even better, do not use them at all. There is nothing wrong with the occasional use of the passive voice.
- 9,400
6
votes
Is "entitled" a passive voice verb or adjective in "everyone is entitled to respect"?
There are two tests that an adjective should pass.
First, modification by very and pretty. This test may not be applicable in all cases, but where variations in degree are possible, it's a pretty good ...
- 8,631
5
votes
Indirect object? Direct object? In active voice? In passive voice?
First some terminology, so that we can agree what we are talking about. I will distinguish semantic/thematic roles from grammatical functions:
Semantic roles
Agent=doer of the action
Theme=directly ...
- 1,670
5
votes
Accepted
Proper usage of passive voice in the literature survey of scientific article
Authors A and B proposed it. Being that proposed is in the past tense, you would use the past perfect "were obtained" rather than the present perfect "are obtained."
Now, that said, since you are ...
- 10.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Is it correct that only transitive verbs can have passive form?
The clear, prototype cases of Passive are all transitive verbs.
The ball was kicked out of bounds by Harry. <= Harry kicked the ball out of bounds.
She has been interviewed before. <= Someone ...
- 107k
5
votes
I have a question about active and passive voice
You’re exactly right that the sentence she looked young is no more passive than she was young. Sounds like somebody doesn’t know what a passive even is. This drives linguists mad, because the vulgar ...
- 134k
5
votes
Accepted
The process by which Middle English developed... or WAS developed?
The confusion between an intransitive verb (which doesn't have a passive form) and a transitive verb (which can be active or passive) is one that has been responsible for many incorrect passive-...
- 274
5
votes
Accepted
"Focus on" or "be focused on": what're the nuances?
There is a reason that these active-voice and passive-voice constructions carry very similar meanings. The verb to focus is ergative.
The lens focuses rays of light.
Nothing else ...
- 1,989
4
votes
verb or adjective in "The blue page is *stapled* to the red page"?
It's easy. A participle is always being used as an adjective, since a "participle" is a verb which is being used as an adjective.
You can tell participles, which are not adjectives but rather verbs, ...
- 17.2k
4
votes
How to use Present Perfect Continuous in Passive form?
In general, you can't replace passive present perfect continuous by any other tense (for some sentences, you can). Consider
That bridge has been being repaired for the past ten years.
You can't ...
- 87.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Can I use an emphatic "did" in the passive past tense?
Let me walk you through it.
What bridges? Certain specific bridges? Or all the bridges we know of? Hmm. Okay, we do know know that the Romans built some bridges. They had the know-how, and their ...
- 20.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Is "automatically eraseing" or "being erased automatically" correct?
I'd choose the latter phrasing, "my file is being erased automatically", because the first construction is ambiguous and could also mean either of the following:
my file is self-erasing
my file has ...
- 111
4
votes
Can someone be "chosen voluntarily"? Does it make sense to you?
When a study is done, it is designed to measure certain parameters. Subjects are chosen for studies based on their fitness for the study parameters. Technically, all subjects (for medical studies, ...
- 55.2k
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