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CHAPTER 12 The Passive Transformation
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CHAPTER 12 The Passive Transformation The passive is used extensively in writing. One cannot pick up a newspaper without being confronted by passives in headlines, in news features, and, especially, in the sports pages. One finds such headlines as Million A Year in Overtime (was) Paid. Job Trainee Says Pay (was) Issued. Tigers (were) Destroyed by Bruins Within the text of a news story, one may find a paragraph such as the following: The Tigers were destroyed by the Bruins in a game that was played under the lights at the Arena. Although Johnson had been put in at quarterback as a last ditch effort, it was too late. The game already had been lost in the third quarter when the Bruins were allowed to score three times. The Tigers were overwhelmed by the Bruins at their best. The italicized verb phrases are all passive voice. An individual not understanding the structure of the passive could derive the wrong information concerning some of the facts of the story. Having arrived at a level of being able to understand the subject-verb-object relationships in sentences, one could, by using the clues of word order (surface order strategy), get the information that the Tigers destroyed the Bruins, Johnson put in the quarterback, and the Tigers overwhelmed the Bruins. Unit 1: Passive Voice Objectives • State the feature of the verb needed for the passive transformation • Specify the tense and voice of active and passive verb phrases • Specify passive sentences as reversible or nonreversible The passive is an operation on a Pattern 2 sentence with a transitive verb. Only verbs with the feature [+transitive] can be transformed to passive voice. In many instances, the meaning relationships of the sentences that can be transformed are 107 108 THE PASSIVE TRANSFORMATION Agent-action-patient; however, the other meanings that can be expressed in Pattern 2 sentences also may be found in passive sentences. Rules for Passive Voice In the full passive sentence, a number of rules must be used to get to the surface structure (the passive form) from the deep structure (subject·verb-object or Agentaction -patient). The rules in the following list must be used in generating a passive sentence to express an Agent-action-patient relationship. Agent-action-patient The girl kissed the boy. t. Patient or object, the boy, becomes the subject of the sentence 2. Be auxiliary is inserted in the verb phrase: past + be =was 3. -en is affixed to the verb: -en +kiss = kissed 4. by is added and is followed by the NP, which is the agent or subject, by the girl These changes result in the sentence The boy was kissed by the girl, which retains the same meaning as the original sentence in the active form. If one uses a surface order strategy in interpreting the passive sentence and focuses on the order of the stressed words in the passive sentence, boy kissed girl, then one misinterprets the meaning. This is often the case in young children and in language-delayed children prior to the time that they understand the significance of the clues to the passive: the by and the be auxiliary with the verb. Reversible and Nonreversible Passives One reason that some passives can be more readily misinterpreted than others is that the original meanings expressed are reversible. It is possible in the preceding example that the boy could have kissed the girl. If one gets this meaning from the passive sentence, which is semantically reversible, it is not surprising. Note what happens when the relationships are nonreversible. active: Mr. Smith painted the house. passive: The house was painted by Mr. Smith. (active): *The house painted Mr. Smith. (surface order strategy) A passive sentence such as the above would not make sense if one used a surface order strategy. The noun phrases, Mr. Smith and the house, cannot be interchanged and result in a sentence that is semantically appropriate or that makes a [3.145.191.22] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 23:11 GMT) PASSIVE SENTENCES WITH OTHER COMPLEXITIES 109 realistic or probable statement. In The girl kissed the boy or The boy was kissed by the girl, the noun phrases could be substituted one for the other (i.e., reversed). The resulting sentences would make statements that were probable, realistic, and appropriate. In the following list, which of the passive sentences are reversible and which are nonreversible? 1. A Honda was hit by a Chevette. 2. The rat was killed by...