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PASSIVES (to be read after ahapter 25) In active sentences, the subject is the actor, the one who ftdoesft the action of the verb. In passive sentences, however, the subject receives the action of the verb; it is acted upon. These two English sentences serve as examples: ACTIVE The cat is chasing a mouse. PASSIVE A mouse is being chased (by the cat). We do not have to mention the actor (here 'the cat') in the passive sentence, but we can include it after the preposition 'by. ' In English, passives are formed by using a form of the verb 'to be' and the past participle of the main verb. By changing the tense of the auxiliary 'to be,' we can create passive sentences which correspond to all of the tenses we have in active sentences: ACTIVE PASSIVE present imperfect pres. perf. future to chase to be chased chases is chased is chasing is being chased chased was chased was chasing was being chased has chased has been chased had chased had been chased will/shall chase Will/shall be chased. Note that in the passive examples above, the form of the verb after 'to be, is, is being ••• ' is always 'chased,' the past participle of 'to chase.' In Norwegian, there are two ways to form passives: 1. a compound passive (similar to the English construction ) 2. an -s passive (with no analogous structure in English) • 1. COMPOUND PASSIVE. As in English, the compound passive uses an auxiliary verb and the past participle. The auxiliary verb in Norwegian is a bZi (bZir. bZe. har bZitt). ACTIVE Jeg spiser p¢lsene. Jeg spiste p¢lsene. Jeg har spist p¢lsene. Jeg skal spise p¢lsene. PASSIVE present P¢lsene blir spist (av meg). imperfect P¢lsene ble spist (av meg). pres. perf. P¢lsene har blitt spist (av meg). future P¢lsene skal bli spist (av meg). Remember that in these passive sentences, the past participle (spist) remains constant while the tense of a bZi varies to correspond to the tenses of the active sentences. 167 PASSIVES 2. -S PASSIVE. The second passive construction is called the -8 passive. An -8 is added to the active infinitive form to create the passive verb. This form functions as both the passive present tense and the passive infinitive: PRESENT P¢lsene spises (av meg). INFINITIVE (after modal) P¢lsene ska1 spises (av meg). Other tenses of the -8 passive are rare. There is a tendency to use the compound passive (d bZi + past participle) for single events or specific occurrences of events. The -8 passive usually expresses actions which are of a more general or repetitive nature, or are not limited in time. The -8 passive is also common as the infinitive form used after moda1s. 168 ...

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