Advanced C1

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Advanced C1 C2
Joining
Grammar Forces
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Unit 7 Presentation 1

• What is the Voice of a verb?

a set of rules governing the formation of tenses
so as to show who does sth or to whom sth is done

• How many Voices are there?

Technically speaking, 2 the Active the Passive
Voices but there is also some kind of Middle
Voice.
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What is important in each Voice?
Active the subject
Passive the action
Middle the fact that the action returns to its
instigator
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Formation Analysis of VoicesPresentation 2
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How is the Active Voice formed?

• Its the basic English syntax (SVO) the normal
  formation use of the verb tenses.

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How is the Passive Voice formed?

• be past participle
• then following 4 steps to turn an active sentence
  into a passive one.

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What are the 4 steps that change an Active
sentence into a Passive one?

1. The object of the Active Sentence (AS) becomes
   the subject in the Passive Sentence (PS)
2. The verb be is conjugated in the tense of the
   AS
3. The main AS verb becomes a past participle
4. If need be, the AS subject becomes the PS agent
   (by )

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What are some presuppositions about the Passive
Voice?

• Only transitive verbs can be passive.
• Some transitive verbs may not be changeable.
• Some usually intransitive verbs can change if
  used as dependent (on a preposition).
• There are only 2 Continuous Tenses in the Passive.

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Passive Voice presuppositions (contd)

• The agent may be redundant because it is
• i) too general, ii) unknown, iii) easily
  understood.
• English PV verbs may not always translate (well)
  into Greek.
• If the AV verb is a Double-object one, we have
  two possible transformations.
• The verbs that do not form a PS from their
  person-object are transformed by means of the
  Auxiliary Passive Form.

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A special case in the Passive Voice

• When the AS object is a that clause and not a
  noun, we have 2 possible transformations
• an impersonal construction (it is said that )
• a personal one (sb/ sth is said to )

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The Auxiliary Passive Form

• have sth done
• is the same as the Causative form of the verb but
  when used as a Passive form it implies that the
  subject has sth done to him/ her rather than for
  him/ her.

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The Causative Form of the verb

• Can also have get/ need/ want/ would like/ etc
  and shows causality, i.e. the subject causes
  the action but do not do it themselves.

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Other Causal Uses of Have Get

• have sb do sth
• get sb to do sth

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Various Notes on the Passive Voice

1. Careful with Questions in Passive Voice
2. In informal usage, use get instead of be
3. The Passive is more formal than the Active
4. To turn a PS into an AS, use the 4 steps in
   reverse order

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The Middle VoicePresentation 3
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What do we know about the Middle Voice from Unit
2?

• It does not exist in English as a tense
  formation.
• Some verbs contain a reflexive meaning in
  themselves some others can be made to through
  the use of the Reflexive Pronouns.

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Some verbs change meaning with the self
pronouns!
Active Transitive Reflexive - Intransitive
enjoy enjoy oneself
rise above rise above oneself
kick kick oneself
park park oneself
keep keep oneself to oneself
forget forget oneself
behave behave oneself