Passive voice in english in comparison with that in vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic analysis

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N0 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY TONG THI TINH PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH IN COMPARISON WITH THAT IN VIETNAMESE IN TERMS OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS DEGR

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N0 2

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY

TONG THI TINH

PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH IN COMPARISON WITH THAT IN VIETNAMESE IN TERMS OF

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH)

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN VAN DEN, M.A

HANOI, 2013

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this chance to express my greatest gratitude to Mr Nguyen Van Den, M.A., my supervisor, for his patience in providing continuous and careful guidance as well as encouragement, indispensable suggestions and advice

I wish to thank all the lecturers at Hanoi Pedagogical University Number 2, especially the lecturers in the Foreign Language Faculty for their dedicated instructions during my years of university work

I am particularly grateful to my close friends for their enthusiasm and kindness in helping me collect valuable reference documents and data for my research

Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my beloved family, for their whole – hearted encouragement and endless support

ABSTRACT

According to researchers, passive meaning exists in almost all languages and the difference is how to denote this kind of meaning One of the ways which is often used to express passive meaning is passive voice In European languages, passive voice is a familiar phenomenon while in Vietnamese this is a developing grammatical phenomenon

Hence, some viewpoints about passive voice in Vietnamese are very different: some people say that Vietnamese has no passive voice; some say that passive voice exists in Vietnamese Students of English are confused when learning English or translating these two languages Therefore, this research work entails studying and comparing how to denote passive meaning in English and Vietnamese

Based on the results, the similarities and differences in this aspect in Vietnamese and English have been found Teaching implications of the passive voice have been suggested

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Title: Passive voice in English in comparison with that in Vietnamese in terms

of syntactic and semantic analysis

(Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Bachelor

of Arts in English)

I certify that no part of this report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgements and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance from my supervisor

Date submitted: May 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART ONE INTRODUCTION I Rationale 1

II Research presupposition 1

III Research objectives 2

IV Research scope 2

V Research tasks 2

VI Research methods 3

VII Significance of the proposed research 3

VIII Design of the research work 3

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH I.1 Literature review in brief 5

I.2 Discussing the name of the research paper 7

I.2.1 Definition of voice 7

I.2.2 The term “passive” 8

I.2.3 Syntactic and semantic analysis 8

I.3 Passive voice in syntactic analysis 10

I.3.1 Be – passive 10

I.3.2 Get – passive 10

I.3.3 Passive voice with modal verbs 11

I.3.4 Passive voice with to – infinitives and gerunds 12

I.3.5 Verbs and objects in passive voice 12

I.3.5.1 Transitive verbs or intransitive verbs 12

I.3.5.2 Transitive verbs 15

I.3.5.2.1 Monotransitive verbs 15

I.3.5.2.2 Ditransitives verbs 18

I.3.5.2.3 Complex transitive verbs 19

I.4 Passive voice in semantic analysis 20

I.4.1 Agents and Patients in passives 20

I.4.2 Agents in passives 22

I.4.3 Get – passive 23

I.4.4 Passive with introductory “it” 25

I.4.5 Spoken and written usage of passives 25

I.5 Others 26

CHAPTER TWO: PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN VIETNAMESE II.1 Passive constructions in syntactic analysis 28

II.1.1 Passive constructions with “bị” and “được” 29

II.1.2 Passive constructions without “bị” and “được” 34

II.1.2.1 Absence of“bị/được” as function words 34

II.1.2.2 Predicates with “chịu”, “mắc”, “phải” 35

II.2 Passive constructions in semantic analysis 36

II.2.1 Meanings of “bị” and “được” 36

II.2.2 Subjects in passives 37

II.2.3 Transitive verb – object inversion 38

II.2.4 “do/của” + subject – verb 40

II.3 Spoken and written usage of passive constructions 40

CHAPTER THREE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH IN COMPARISON WITH THAT IN VIETNAMESE III.1 Similarities 43

III.1.1 In terms of syntax 43

III.1.1.1 Agents used in passives 43

III.1.1.2 Verbs used in passives 44

III.1.2 In terms of semantics 45

III.2 Differences 46

III.2.1 In terms of syntax 46

III.2.2 In terms of semantics 47

III.2.2.1 Modal meaning of Vietnamese passive sentences with “bị” and “được” 47 III.2.2.2 Lexical meaning of subjects in Vietnamese passive sentences 47

III.2.2.3 Lexical meaning cautioning in translation 48

III.3 Teaching implications 50

PART THREE CONCLUSION I Conclusion 52

II References 55

PART ONE INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Since Vietnam is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the world can now be compared to a global village, English plays an essential role in all economic sectors as well as in daily life No one can deny the importance of English in Vietnam at present Therefore, English is being taught at every educational level

Of all the grammatical items, the concept of voice in general and passive voice in particular, seems to be one of the most challenging issues In English passive voice is expressed with syntactic constructions, involving a combination of

the auxiliary verb “be” and the past participle form of the verb In Vietnamese - a

non flectional language, on the other hand, there are many arguments over whether passive voice is a grammar category or not Passive meaning in Vietnamese is expressed by functional words and syntactic and semantic structures

Besides, passive voice is one of the language categories that students at high school have to learn Although passive voice is very common in writing and speaking but the amount of passive voice in high school English text is limited In fact, many students confess that passive voice is the one of the problems of English grammar which they are unaware of and confuse with Vietnamese passive voice Within the framework of this graduation paper, English passive structures will be studied through contrastive analysis with Vietnamese with the intent of systematically providing an overview of English passive structures and Vietnamese equivalents to help learners improve their translation Moreover, as a prospective teacher, I would like to make a contribution to English teaching in Vietnam For the reasons above, this study is conducted, which is focused on passive voice in English in comparison with that in Vietnamese

II Research presupposition

For the achievement of those mentioned issues, the study seeks the answers

to the following questions:

 What are the perspectives on passive voice in English and that in Vietnamese?

 What are the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between passive voice in English and that in Vietnamese?

Based on the questions above, I am eager to learn about the problems and make a comparative analysis of passive voice in English and in Vietnamese so that the major similarities and differences may be found

III Research objectives

The study is aimed at following goals:

1 To find out the formation, characteristics and usage of English passive voice

2 To find out the formation, characteristics and usage of Vietnamese passive voice

3 To find out the similarities and differences in passive voice between English and Vietnamese in semantic and syntactic terms

IV Research scope

The general research area of this study is grammar The phenomenon is passive voice in English in comparison with that in Vietnamese Others relating to passive voice are also briefly mentioned

Because of time constraints, my study cannot cover all the aspects of passive voice including syntax, semantics, pragmatics and morphology Within the framework of a graduation paper, I focus on finding out the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese passive structures in terms of syntax and semantics Regarding passive meaning in Vietnamese, I will contrast it with that in English

V Research tasks

The study involves fulfilling the following tasks:

 To study the formation, usage and characteristics of English passive voice

 To study the formation, usage and characteristics of Vietnamese passive voice

 To compare the passive in English with that in Vietnamese, on the basis

of the findings, teaching implications to this category are sought to clear the students’ questions

VI Research methods

To achieve the objectives of the study, the following methods have been applied including synthetic, descriptive, analytical and contrastive methods

Firstly, synthetic methods are used to select the most useful information collected from some grammar books, reference theses as well as other sources available and put them in order comprehensively and logically

Secondly, descriptive methods and analytical methods are applied in the study to provide an overview of passive structures in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics

The last one is the contrastive method to find out the similarities and differences between English passive structures and Vietnamese equivalents

During the process of conducting the study, it is a “must” to consult the supervisor, experience teachers and friends

VII Significance of the proposed research

The same category of grammar in two languages may have similarities and differences It will mislead learners if they cannot distinguish the differences in functions and uses of that category It is, therefore, essential for teachers to have better treatment After the research, it is hoped that the result will be helpful to provide:

1 Input for learners of English in order to clearly describe passive voice

2 Input for teachers of English with teaching implications of passive voice This study is also beneficial to anyone who is interested in passive voice in English

VIII Design of the research work

The research work has three main parts, namely: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion The part “Development” consists three chapters

Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical background of English passive voice

including definitions, forms, characteristics of passive voice and its uses in detail

Chapter 2 deals with passive voice in Vietnamese including the existence of

passive voice, characteristics and its uses in detail

Chapter 3 compares and contrasts the similarities and differences between

English passive voice and that in Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH I.1 Literature review in brief

Passive voice, as well as passive sentences, is a typically grammatical phenomenon of Indo–European languages In the functional respect, this definition

is directly referred to the grammatical relationship between verbs and other key grammatical elements, namely subjects and objects However, according to European traditional grammar, passive voice is usually attributed to the

morphological category of verbs basing on its modality of expression, called voice

Passive voice in English has been described by many grammarians like Vince (1993), Eastwood (1992), Fuchs and Bonner (2008), Close (1975), etc They each have their own way to describe passive voice Generally, they focus their attention on passive formations and uses

Eastwood (1992) in the book Oxford Practice Grammar deals with the

formation of the passive voice He also compares active with passive voice and gives some special passive structures

Fuchs and Bonner (2006) in the book Focus on Grammar 4: An Integrated

Skills Approach only refer to the form of verbs and uses of passive sentences

Close (1975) in the book A Reference Grammar for Students of English

mentions the form of passive voice He focuses on the classification of verbs in the passive sentence

In the books Advanced Language Practice and First Certificate Language

Practice, Vince (1993) gives the passive forms and uses He also mentions agents

in passive sentences and verbs linking with objects, prepositions and complements Moreover, he pays his attention to transitive and intransitive verbs in passive voice Besides, he concentrates on some special cases in which verbs are used

To some Vietnamese grammarians dealing with passive voice, different criteria have been proposed in different research works for a common formula of the passive construction in Vietnamese Some researchers (Cardier, Emeneau, Li

& Thompson, Kim…) believe that Vietnamese does not have passive voice because of its typology Meanwhile, researchers such as Cổn and Diên (2004), Hòa (1980), Ban (1992), Vân (2002), etc argue that Vietnamese has passive constructions or passive sentences despite of not having the term “passive” as a morphological term They also give evidence for their opinions

Cổn and Diên (2004) in the study Dạng bị động và Vấn đề câu bị động

trong Tiếng Việt pressed in Linguistics Magazine Vol 7 give a quite full

grammatical theory of passive voice in general and Vietnamese passive sentences

in particular They also discuss a controversial issue about the existence of passive sentences in Vietnamese By an agreement on this issue, they define Vietnamese passive sentences and draw a distinction between passive sentences and other types of sentences in Vietnamese, but not in comparison with English

In the book Ngữ pháp Kinh nghiệm của Cú pháp Tiếng Việt: Mô tả theo

Quan điểm của Chức năng Hệ thống, Vân (2002) focuses on ‘voice’ and the term

‘voice’ in Vietnamese

Hòa (1980) in the book Ngôn ngữ học Đối chiếu: Cú pháp đối sánh Việt

Anh compares passive sentences in English and Vietnamese in semantic and

syntactic terms However, he does not mention to the implication for teaching and learning of passive voice to ESL teachers and students Besides, some contrasts and terms in the research are intricate, which makes readers confusing

Ban (1992) in the book Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt 2 gives a general grammar

structure of Vietnamese passive sentences He also deals with “bị/ được” in terms

of auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and lexical verbs

In short, much research has been done on the passive voice both in English and Vietnamese but not much research has been conducted to deal with comparisons of passive voice in these two languages Considering the importance

of this issue, it is essential to have a comprehensive study of passive voice in comparison with Vietnamese

I.2 Discussing the name of the research paper

I.2.1 Definition of voice

Nowadays, there is little consensus of what voice is Therefore, a large number of definitions of voice have been offered in many grammar books and dictionaries However, it is always a controversial issue to choose the best definition These are some typical definitions that are usually used in learning English to help learners understand and grasp clearly about voice

In the book A Grammar of Present Day English, Gordon (1995, p 85) notes:

“Voice is the form of the verb, which serves to show whether the subject of the sentence is the agent or the object of the action expressed by the predicate verb”

In the book Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995, p 1932), voice is

also defined as “a form or set of forms of a verb in which either person or thing that does something is the subject of the verb (the active voice) or the person or thing that is affected by the action of the verb is the object (the passive voice)”

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (1972, p 801) in the book A Grammar of

Contemporary English claim that voice is a grammatical category through which

we can see it in two ways but the meaning in fact does not change

According to Wikipedia, the term voice refers to the relationship between the subject and the verb in a sentence In passive voice constructions, the subject receives the action of the verb rather than act on it

In the book Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Crystal (1997) defines:

“Voice is a category used to describe sentence structures or clauses, which mainly relate to verbs, to show the selection between subject and object for a sentence without changing its meaning”

To sum up, voice is a grammatical category in which the subject of a sentence or clause takes the role as a recipient of the action rather than the performer This will be illustrated by the following example:

Nam painted the house yesterday

→ The house was painted by Nam yesterday

In the former sentence the subject “Nam” performs the action indicated by the verb “painted” In the latter sentence, “the house” does not do the action “The

house” is affected by the action of painting

I.2.2 The term “passive”

The term “passive” derives from the Latin term passivium (from pati, i.e to

suffer) from the original Greek term pathos ‘anything that befalls one, a suffering,

affection’ (Anderson, 1989.) Passive constructions signify the state of ‘being acted upon’ or ‘suffering the effects of the action’ (Lyons, 1968, cited in Anderson, 1989.) Anderson (ibid.) further notes that in passive constructions, the subject does nothing, and is affected in consequence of action

In his article entitled Passive in the World’s Language, Keenan (1985)

presents three general properties of the basic passive, i.e (i) no agent phrase (e.g

by Tom) is present, (ii) the main verb (in its non – passive form) is transitive, and (iii) the main verb expresses an activity, taking agent subjects and patient objects

He also notes that generally languages can express passive expressions, e.g ‘John was slapped,’ without committal as to who the agent was, but they usually use fully active means to do so However, he emphasizes that even languages without passives, in terms of changes in morphology, have somewhat more grammaticalized means for expressing functional equivalents of basic passives I.2.3 Syntactic and semantic analysis

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, syntax is defined the

way that words and phrases are put together to form sentences in a language

Cobbett (1818) in A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of

Letters: Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but More Especially for the Use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys

said that: "Syntax is a word which comes from the Greek It means, in that language, the joining of several things together; and, as used by grammarians, it means those principles and rules which teach us how to put words together so as to form sentences It means, in short, sentence-making Syntax will teach you how to

give all your words their proper situations or places, when you come to put them together into sentences."

In the book Syntactic Structures, Chomsky (1971) states that: “Syntax is the

study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal, the grammatical construction of a language that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis."

Regarding what is semantics, in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,

it is the study of the meanings of words and phrases The two main areas are logical semantics, concerned with matters such as sense and reference and presupposition and implication, and lexical semantics, concerned with the analysis

of word meanings and relations between them

According to Saeed (2003) in the book Semantics, “As our original

definition of semantics suggests, it is a very broad field of inquiry, and we find scholars writing on very different topics and using quite different methods, though sharing the general aim of describing semantic knowledge As a result, semantics

is the most diverse field within linguistics In addition, semanticists have to have at least a nodding acquaintance with other disciplines, like philosophy and psychology, which also investigate the creation and transmission of meaning Some of the questions raised in these neighboring disciplines have important effects on the way linguists do semantics."

Pulman (1997, p 105 – 138) in the chapter “Language Analysis and

Understanding” of the book Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language

Technology indicated that a perennial problem in semantics is the delineation of its

subject matter The term meaning can be used in a variety of ways, and only some

of these correspond to the usual understanding of the scope of linguistic or computational semantics

In this paper, the author would like to put passive voice on the view point of syntactic and semantic analysis to provide deeply this category in English and

Vietnamese After that the contrast is made to find out similarities and differences

of passive voice in both languages

I.3 Passive voice in syntactic analysis

I.3.1 Be - passive

Passive voice is known to be expressed by the combination of the auxiliary verb “be” with the verb in past participle (Vpp) The tenses of “be” in passive structures are presented as the following:

Table 1:

Tenses of “be” in passive structures

The march is being televised now

Past S + was/were + being +

Papers have been used for ages

Past S + had + been + Vpp The bag had been left at home

when I went to school

Future S + will + have + been

I.3.2 Get – passive

In English, a passive sentence is formed with “get” and a past participle

The verb “get” can function in a manner very similar with “be” In Oxford Guide

to English Grammar, Eastwood (1994, p 136) notes: “We sometimes form the

passive with get rather than be”

He got bitten by mosquitoes

The example above has get – passive structure used without a by – phrase

If the sentence lacks a by – phrase, it is easy to make confusion between a get – passive with get before a past participle and a get preceding adjectives and

meaning “become” Considering this point, let’s look at these examples as following:

1 He got irritated at his stupid dog

2 He got frightened by his stupid dog

In the two examples above, it causes ambiguity to distinguish between a

past participle and an adjective To identify the past participle we can insert “very” before irritated Adjectives admit “very” but participles do not Besides, by –

phrase is also used to identify the passive in this case

The Get – passive is also used to express an action or change not a state, whereas passive sentences with “be” usually denote a state In other words, the verbs in get – passives are often dynamic According to Carter and McCarthy, get – passives cannot replace be – passives with non – dynamic verbs For example:

The bed had not been slept in

but not * The bed had not got slept in

I.3.3 Passive voice with modal verbs

According to John Eastwood in Oxford Guide to English Grammar (1994,

p 136), the passive is also known to be expressed by combination of modal verbs

followed by be with past participles:

Modal + Be + Past Participle

The problem can be solved immediately

Violent actions should be banned in schools

A modal verb can combine with the perfective and passive together:

Modal + have been + Past Participle

The window should have been cleaned yesterday

My bicycle must have been stolen

There are modal verbs in modern English: will/would, shall/should, can/could,

may/might, ought to, must, have to, used to, dare, let, need Especially, need forms

a passive sentence by preceding an active – ing form of verb or a passive infinitive

The table needs repairing/ The table needs to be repaired

Fishes in the bow need feeding/ Fishes in the bow need to be fed

I.3.4 Passive voice with to - infinitives and gerunds

To – infinitives and gerunds usually appear in the passive and come in the

same pattern as the active form For example:

I expected to be invited to the party

It is terrible to be bitten by dogs

In the second example, we can rewrite it by using a gerund phrase without changing the passive form of the verb “bite”

Being bitten by dogs is terrible

Sometimes, the passive meaning is remained while the active is used in a sentence like this:

You are not to blame for what happened (= no one should blame you)

The reason for this case is that “to blame” is used in a passive sense with the

meaning of responsibility for something bad happened

We also have perfect tenses of to – infinitives and gerunds Let us see two examples below:

He is said to have been sacked for a week

I am annoyed at having been made a fool of

I.3.5 Verbs and objects in passive voice

I.3.5.1 Transitive verbs or intransitive verbs

In so many research works about passive voice, grammarians affirm that in passive voice, all verbs are transitive Why do they say so? Why intransitive verbs

do not appear in passive sentences? They are related to objects When we use

the passive, the subject is hidden there is always an object, which means the verb

is always transitive

Transitive verbs always take objects and answer a question beginning with 'what' or 'whom' When the writer uses the passive, the subject is hidden and the focus is on the object

The object of a transitive verb can be:

1 a noun: Tom sold his house

2 a pronoun: He sold it

3 a clause: He asked his friend to help him

A transitive verb usually takes a direct object; that is, the verb transmits action to an object

He sent the letter (letter is direct object of sent) She gave the lecture (lecture is direct object of gave)

A transitive verb can also have an indirect object that precedes the direct

object The indirect object tells to or for whom the action is done, although the words to and for are not used In the following examples, there is a difference between the direct and indirect objects The direct object “letter” receives the action “sent” The indirect object “Robert” is the person to whom the letter is sent:

He sent Robert the letter

The direct object “lecture” receives the action “gave” The indirect object

“class” is the group to whom the lecture is given:

She gave her class the lecture

There are 3 kinds of transitive verb: monotransitive, ditransitive and complex transitive verbs

 Monotransitive verbs are verbs that take only one object

She studies Russian

 Ditransitive are verbs that take two objects

My mother gave me a pen

 Complex transitive verbs are verbs that take an object and an object complement or an object and an obligatory adverbial

Her son painted the floor red

Each kind of transitive verbs will be specific presented in next sections

In contrast, an intransitive verb is simply defined as a verb that does not take a direct object There’s no word in the sentence that tells who or what receives the action While there may be a word or phrase following an intransitive verb Such words and phrases typically answer the question “how”, “when” and

“where” Most intransitive verbs are complete without a direct object For instance:

She grew up

It rained

Intransitive verbs can be followed by a prepositional phrase or an adverb to add to the thought being expressed, but they can never be followed by a noun, which would act as the object of the sentence For instance:

He grew up on a ranch

She grew up to be a farmer

“On a ranch” is a prepositional phrase, not a direct object The word “on” is

a preposition that introduces the prepositional phrase adding to the sentence meaning by answering the question “Where did he grow up?” The same can be said of “to be a farmer”, which is yet another phrase

We can recognize an intransitive verb because it never has a passive form For example, ‘bite’, which is transitive, can be used passively The intransitive verb ‘fall’, however, cannot:

The dog bit me

→ I was bitten by the dog

I fell off my bike (prepositional phrase: ‘off my bike’)

* The bike was fallen off

There are some transitive verbs which cannot be made passive, which

The shirt costs 20 dollars

* Twenty dollars are cost by the shirt

I like this place

* The place is liked by me

Some verbs have multiple meanings and can be transitive or intransitive, depending on the context in which they are used Here are some examples:

He grows his own fruit and vegetables (transitive)

My son is growing (intransitive)

The truck runs on diesel gasoline (intransitive)

My uncle runs a restaurant (transitive)

I'm reading (intransitive)

I'm reading an article in the TIME magazine about sharks (transitive)

I.3.5.2 Transitive verbs

I.3.5.2.1 Monotransitive verbs

Monotransitive verbs are verbs that take only one object There are some kinds of objects: noun phrase objects, prepositional objects, finite clause objects, non – finite clause objects…

a) Noun phrase objects:

 Animate/inanimate subject + verb + concrete object

He drank a cup of coffee

The verb may be a phrasal verb: verb + adverbial particle + object When the object of these verbs is a noun, it is placed either before or after the adverbial particle If it is pronoun, it is only placed before the particle

The revolution swept away feudalism

The revolution swept feudalism away

 Animate/ inanimate subject + verb + abstract object

I understood the problem

→ The problem was understood

 Animate subject + verb + animate object

The police have arrested one protester

→ One protester has been arrested

 Inanimate, abstract subject + verb + animate object

The results of the competition shocked the candidates

→ The candidates were shocked by the results of the competition

b) Prepositional objects:

The prepositional object may be a noun, pronoun, gerund, or a (w)h – clause

Look at these examples in active voice:

the prime minister’s speech

speaking what the prime minister spoke

And in passive voice, the subjects may be:

The prime minister’s speech

A new project is suggested to us

The prepositional passive does not very frequently occur It is limited in numbers of verbs which take only one object such as:

 Verbs of saying: speak about/of, comment on, suggest to, talk about/ of

The quote was much commented on

 Verbs of contempt: laugh at, sneer at, jeer at, mock at, frown at

My behavior is laughed at

 Other groups of verbs: look for/at/upon/after, approve of, account for, reply

on/for, think of/about, send for

It was such an important thing to be thought of

c) Finite clause objects:

Finite clauses typically begin with “(w)h” or “that” There are subtypes of verb phrases in “(w)h” or “that” clauses:

 Indicative verbs: I think that he won’t come

→It is thought that he will not come

 Putative “should”: I recommend Peter that he should be confident

→Peter is recommended to be confident

 Subjunctive verbs: Laura agreed that the cat was dirty

→It is agreed that the cat was dirty

Verbs that take putative “should” and subjunctive verbs are: command,

demand, regret, request, ask, authorize, decree, permit, urge, require …

d) Non – finite clause objects:

Non – finite clause objects have two types: with subjects and without subjects

 Non – finite clauses without subject contain several classes of verbs, either

participles or infinitives (deserve, need, require …) It is rare to see these verbs in passives Sometimes introductory it with certain verbs (agree,

decide, feel) to form the passive:

I agree to join this event

→ It is agreed (by me) to join this event

 Non – finite clauses with subjects have two subtypes: to-infinitive with

subject and bare infinitive with subject

+ To-infinitive with subject: Clara was seen to do it

+ Bare infinitive with subject:

(i) Verbs of perception: hear, see, watch, help, let, make

(ii) Verb + object + V-ing:

(iii) Verb + object + ed-participle:

→ The chair was found occupied by the old man

I.3.5.2.2 Ditransitive verbs

Ditransitive verbs are verbs taking two objects The category of ditransitive verbs depends on types of object

a) Indirect + direct noun phrase object:

There are a number of verbs which take two objects: a direct and an indirect object Either direct object or indirect object may become a subject of a passive sentence

He passed Paul the ball

→Paul was passed the ball

The verbs have two objects which can be replaced by prepositional constructions “to” or “for” Thus, ditransitive verbs have two ways to express:

He gave Mary ten dollars

or He gave ten dollars to Mary

→ Ten dollars was given to Mary

or Mary was given ten dollars

These verbs include: give, bring, hand, grant, offer, owe, promise, show,

teach, tell

b) Verb + noun phrase + preposition phrase + object:

This construction constitutes a special type of complex object: the verb and the two phrases form a very idiomatic unit

Pretty girls are always taken notice of

There are some common idioms: put an end to, set fire to, do away with,

take note of, keep an eye on, keep face with, catch/ lose sight of…

c) Noun phrase + finite clause object:

 “That” – clause: sometimes “that” is omitted

They found that they had gone wrong side

→ It was found that they had gone wrong side

 “(W)h” – clause:

d) Prepositional phrase + that – clause object:

Some verbs take the preposition “to” and followed by a “that” clause: admit,

complain, mention, acknowledge, declare, explain, remark, report, say, signal, suggest

→ It is complained to me that my son makes noise at night

I.3.5.2.3 Complex transitive verbs

a) Object + noun phrase complement:

They voted him president

→He was voted president

b) Object + preposition + noun phrase complement:

These verbs take the preposition “as” to form complex transitive verbs:

accept, class, consider, know, treat, use, describe, believe, call, declare, set, find, imagine, like …

We considered him as the hero of our city

→He was considered as the hero of our city

“To be” may be inserted before a noun phrase complement

My mother believed Paul to be a genius

→ Paul was believed to be a genius

Introductory “it” is also used effectively in this case to be the subject of the passive

It is believed that Paul is a genius

c) Object + adjective phrase complement:

We painted the floor red

→ The floor was painted red

There are some verbs which can be constructed with “to be” or “as” (given above), whereas some verbs like “paint” in this example do not

d) Object + prepositional adjective phrase complement:

The doctor reputed him as hopeless

→ He was reputed as hopeless

I.4 Passive voice in semantic analysis

To deal with this section, it is necessary to discuss the notion of Figure and Ground which is used by Talmy (2000) to account for the expression of spatial relation in language and the reason of applying this method to analysis the passive Figure and Ground originally refers to the relationship in terms of spatial order, in which some aspects of a visual scene “stand out” against their background (c.f Taylor, 2002, p 10) The Figure – Ground organization relates to the ways in which people conceptualize a situation

On Wikipedia, Figure – Ground organization is defined as a type of perceptual grouping which is a vital necessity for recognizing objects through vision

In Gestalt psychology - a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School, “Figure

and Ground” is known as identifying a figure from the background The Gestalt

psychologists studied all sorts of perceptual organization - the ways that humans organize information about what they see, hear, etc What they found was that there are two main visual components necessary for a person to see an object properly; a figure (the object) and the ground (the background or surroundings in which the object occurs) Thus, when you look at a picture on a wall, the picture is the figure and you can distinguish it clearly from its surroundings, the wall (ground) Concerning passive and active voice, the two sentences, may display the speaker’s expression about the same event, but from the point of view of Figure and Ground’s notion, they differ dramatically from the speaker’s prominent view, which originates from the attention they have once the event being reported

The subject selection in active as well as in passive sentences is based on directing attention to either the agent or patient In active sentences, the Patient serves as the Ground, while in passive sentences, the Agent does that job, i.e serving as the Ground Based on Gestalt Theory, the following sections are to provide an analysis of the passive sentences using notions of Figure and Ground I.4.1 Agents and Patients in passives

Halliday (1994, p 168) states that in clauses containing Agents, i.e doers,

process is actualized, and without which there would be no process at all, serves as subject and the Agent as the adjunct He claims that there are two major reasons for choosing passive voice First, it is to get the Medium as Subject, and therefore

as unmarked Theme, and second to make the Agent either (i) later news, by putting it last, or (ii) implicit, by leaving it out

In the first example, the Agent, Tom, is the focal point, serving as the

Figure The speaker pays attention to the Agent that, whether intentionally or

unintentionally, does something to the Patient, the glass In the second sentence,

the subject expresses the Agent, thus being construed as the syntactic figure In the first one, the Agent contains the most prominent information that the speaker is focusing on The speaker, uttering this sentence, manages to answer the question

of who broke the glass or of what Tom did to the glass

The two sentences above describe exactly the same event, in which there is a man called Tom who has broken a glass However, they do not represent the same meaning expressed by the speaker In the first sentence, the speaker presents the scene in terms of what Tom did to the glass The focus of the speaker is what Tom did And the Figure is Tom since our attention naturally flows to the Figure, and a feature of a scene becomes the Figure precisely because we focus attention on it

While in the first, Tom is focused, drawing the speaker’s attention, serving

as the Figure, the glass in the second does that task Altering “the way we think, or

conceptualize a situation” results in different linguistic expressions (c.f Taylor,

2002, p 10 – 11) Therefore, once we have a different structure, it is clear that the speaker must have seen the situation with a different conceptualization, resulting

in another utterance with a different structure

It is clear that the subjects of (1) and (2) are different from each other, and it

is the speaker who chooses that selection Tomlin (1997, cited in Hilferty, 2000) states that subject selection in active and in passive sentences is cued by directing attentional resources to either the Agent or the Patient Speakers will produce

active sentences if the Agent is more salient than the Patient and reverse in passive sentences

I.4.2 Agents in passives

a) By – agent

Whether we include the agent or not depends on how important the information we focus on is

This gift was sent yesterday

This gift was sent yesterday by DHL express

In the first example, we have no agent because we do not need to know who

delivered it In the second example, we see by DHL express which indicates the

company delivering the letter

Some prepositions which are called “semi – agent” can also be used such as:

at, with, about, over, to…

I’m surprised at his emotional face

When we describe how something is done, the object is called “the instrument”, introduced by “with” or “by + V – ing”

b) Passive voice without agents

The agents are not mentioned if they are unknown, generalized, obvious, unimportant, or in an impersonality case

 Unimportant agent:

I was suggested to apply for a job in a cooperated company

In this case, we do not need to add an agent “by somebody” because it is not important to the meaning of the sentence

 Generalized agent: we, you, they, one, someone, something, etc

Smart phones are widely used in developing countries

 Obvious agent:

He has been arrested for an hour

In this case, the agent “by the police” is obvious So we do not need to add

 Unknown agent:

The vase was broken (the speaker didn’t know who broke the vase)

In this example, we do not know who broke the vase So the agent is omitted

The first sentence represents for the case of reported verbs such as say, tell,

announce, know, believe… which are used in it structures The second sentence is

in the process so the speaker emphasizes on the actions performed rather than on the people who perform them In the third example, the speaker tends to avoid the naming of a specific person who is responsible for an action, so the agent is not referred

I.4.3 Get – passive

Structurally speaking, get – passives are identical to be – passives in terms

of promoting a logical object to the role of grammatical subject, and following an optional agent to be expressed by a prepositional “by” (c.f Murphy, 2004, p 95, referred from Givón and Yang, 1994, p 120) Two sentences below are identical in the order of the participants, yet they semantically differ from each other

1 Tom was killed last night

2 Tom got killed last night

Considering (2), we can infer that Tom could have done something carelessly or even illegally, thus resulting in his bad outcome In other words, he is somehow responsible for his own misfortune On the other hand, we do not detect that kind of inference in (1) For this case, Givón and Yang (1994, p 119) state

that in be – passives, the demoted agent retains controlled, while in get – passives,

the promoted patient remains in control (cited in Murphy, 2004)

In their study, Givón and Yang (ibid.) find that most of the cases, get –

passives occur with human/ animate subjects, and if non – human/ inanimate

subjects do appear, there must be a sense of responsibility or human involvement The following examples will further illustrate this point

A house in my country is usually built of wood

* A house in my country usually gets built of wood

Cater and McCarthy (1997) state that English get – passives

overwhelmingly tend to be used adversely For example:

She got lost but managed to find the way back

The adversative nature of the get – passive is also born out in a contextual analysis because the get – passive often occurs with verbs from categories such as physical assault (get hit), hindrance (get trapped), transference (get snatched), and verbs of emotional or mental strain (get punished)

“Get” and “become” as effective have in general the same meaning but in passive constructions they are becoming different

The get – passive denotes the result of an unexpected action in a short period of time, while the become – passive represents the occurrence as a final

outcome of development or a process

This structure always goes with some adverbs: increasingly, soon, more and

more…

We use have + something + done to talk about work which is done for us

by people

The same construction can describe bad luck caused by an unspecified person

“Get” is used instead of “have” in informal spoken English

It is also used in some expression of managing to do something difficult

Get/ have + something + done is also called the passive of experience It is

I.4.4 Passive with introductory “it”

By uttering the sentence with the introductory “it”, the speaker draws the hearer’s attention to what is said, not to the person who releases the information The speaker’s attention is directed to the news being reported, thus excluding the agent providing the news

1 It is said that Toyota is going to lower the car price

2 Someone says that Toyota is going to lower the car price

The first sentence is a complex one with a defocused agent in the main clause; it is event – oriented, not agent – oriented Sentence (1) cannot be said to derive from (2) due to differences in the speaker’s orientation, vantage points and directionality The agent who provides the news in (2) must be human while the information in (1) may be taken from a source in a newspaper With (2), the speaker wishes to confirm that he/she gets the information from a human being, orienting the hearer to the agent of the sentence, whereas in (1) the hearer is oriented to the event being reported, not the agent

In (2), with the inclusion of a human being serving as the syntactic subject, the speaker creates a vantage point for himself/herself, initiating a relationship between the speaker and the agent in the sentence, thus strengthening the value of the information being discussed This does not necessarily mean that (1) does not have value This is to say that (1) expresses a neutral standpoint from the speaker who reports the news for the sake of reporting and excludes himself/herself from taking responsibility in the accuracy of the information, which may be implied in (2) I.4.5 Spoken and written usage of passives

According to Vince (1998), the passive is common in technical and scientific writing, and generally in spoken and written contexts where there is less use of personal reference, since the audience may be unknown, or the speaker wants to remain impersonal

Richard & Guy (1999, p 34) state that in fact, only about 20% of passive sentences mention the agent In many case, the performer of the action is not important, not known or it is so obvious and widely known For instance: