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lee
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2004 9:01 pm
Post subject: passive frustration |
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A basic question most likely requiring a basic answer. I'm doing my very
best to understand the language that I speak from a grammatical
perspective. I'm now getting to grips with the passive.
I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in the
passive, but I can't quite come up with an active version of the sentence.
What would it be? Sorry for the trip back to basics, but I'd very much
welcome some enlightenment. Thanks.
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Adrian Bailey
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:00 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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"lee" <pepplewickREMOVE@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95A0BDA693E26pepplewickhotmailcom@195.92.193.157...
| Quote: | A basic question most likely requiring a basic answer. I'm doing my very
best to understand the language that I speak from a grammatical
perspective. I'm now getting to grips with the passive.
I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in the
passive,
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?
"Be" is used as an auxiliary to form the passive, as in your Hamlet example.
As a full verb, "be" is a "copula", and as such, though technically active,
is really neither active nor passive.
| Quote: | but I can't quite come up with an active version of the sentence.
What would it be?
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You have already given the active form. If we're playing around, the passive
could be: "A happy woman is being been by her."
| Quote: | Sorry for the trip back to basics, but I'd very much
welcome some enlightenment.
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"Basics" it ain't.
Adrian |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:00 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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Lee Pepplewick, apparently, writes:
| Quote: | ... I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used
in the passive, but...
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First, that's wrong. "Be" is also used as an auxiliary verb to form the
progressive (or continuous) tenses, as in "I am writing this posting."
The passive version of this would contain *two* forms of "be": "This
posting is being written by me."
Second, in the example sentence, "be" is not an auxiliary verb at all;
it's the main verb. This sentence is considered active voice, but has
no passive equivalent.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Effective immediately, all memos are to be written
msb@vex.net | in clear, active-voice English." -- US gov't memo
My text in this article is in the public domain.
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:01 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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lee <pepplewickREMOVE@hotmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | A basic question most likely requiring a basic answer. I'm doing my very
best to understand the language that I speak from a grammatical
perspective. I'm now getting to grips with the passive.
I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in the
passive, but I can't quite come up with an active version of the sentence.
What would it be? Sorry for the trip back to basics, but I'd very much
welcome some enlightenment. Thanks.
|
To construct a passive form (like your Shakespeare example), you need a
transitive verb -- a verb that acts on a direct object.
A baker made this bread.
This bread was made by a baker.
It doesn't make any sense to talk about putting intransitive verbs in
the passive form.
I went to the office.
*To the office was gone by me -- No.
"To be" as in "She is a happy woman" is not considered to be a
transitive verb.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Roland Hutchinson
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:01 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | lee <pepplewickREMOVE@hotmail.com> wrote:
A basic question most likely requiring a basic answer. I'm doing my very
best to understand the language that I speak from a grammatical
perspective. I'm now getting to grips with the passive.
I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in
the passive,
|
However, in "She is a happy woman", "be" isn't an auxilliary verb, it's the
main verb.
| Quote: | but I can't quite come up with an active version of the
sentence. What would it be? Sorry for the trip back to basics, but I'd
very much welcome some enlightenment. Thanks.
To construct a passive form (like your Shakespeare example), you need a
transitive verb -- a verb that acts on a direct object.
A baker made this bread.
This bread was made by a baker.
It doesn't make any sense to talk about putting intransitive verbs in
the passive form.
I went to the office.
*To the office was gone by me -- No.
"To be" as in "She is a happy woman" is not considered to be a
transitive verb.
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It may look like one, but "a happy woman" isn't a direct object -- it's a
predicate complement.
One could go through the motions nonetheless and try to transform it to a
passive construction, coming up with "*A happy woman is been by her."
I'm pretty sure that no native speaker would ever utter that! (Which is
basically just another way of saying, as Donna already did, that "to be"
isn't a transitive verb: there ain't no such thing as being been. As
opposed, to, say, being had.)
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:44 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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"lee" <pepplewickREMOVE@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95A0BDA693E26pepplewickhotmailcom@195.92.193.157...
| Quote: | A basic question most likely requiring a basic answer. I'm doing my very
best to understand the language that I speak from a grammatical
perspective. I'm now getting to grips with the passive.
I understand this form:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet/Hamlet was written by Shakespare.
It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in the
passive, but I can't quite come up with an active version of the sentence.
What would it be? Sorry for the trip back to basics, but I'd very much
welcome some enlightenment. Thanks.
|
You must recognize the difference between
an auxiliary verb (as in the Shakespeare sentence
in passive mood) and the verb to be when it is the
main verb, i.e. is not an auxiliary verb (and has no
passive mood either.) The word was has different
functions in:
Hamlet was written by Shakespeare
She was a happy woman.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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lee
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:00 pm
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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"Don Phillipson" <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> wrote in
news:egxld.428$Su4.4338@newscontent-01.sprint.ca:
| Quote: | You must recognize the difference between
an auxiliary verb (as in the Shakespeare sentence
in passive mood) and the verb to be when it is the
main verb, i.e. is not an auxiliary verb (and has no
passive mood either.) The word was has different
functions in:
Hamlet was written by Shakespeare
She was a happy woman.
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Thanks all. Yes, I was not recognozing the auxiliary as the main verb. It's
a lot clearer now. |
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Stan Brown
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 6:01 am
Post subject: Re: passive frustration |
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"lee" <pepplewickREMOVE@hotmail.com> wrote in alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | It's with 'She is a happy woman' that my brain begings to hurt.
Now my text books tell me that the auxilairy verb 'be' is only used in the
passive,
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If they tell you that -- which I mightily doubt -- they are wrong.
It is true that passive forms use an auxiliary form of "to be", but
that is not the only use of "to be".
Only a transitive verb can have a passive form. (Transitive verbs
have direct objects.) "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet" -- "Hamlet" is the
direct object. In the passive voice, the old direct object becomes
the subject and the old subject becomes the object of a preposition:
"Hamlet was written by Shakespeare."
"She is a happy woman" -- "a happy woman" is not a direct object but
a predicate nominative. "Is" is a form of "to be", which is
intransitive. The verb "is" is in the active voice.
"He is coming toward us" -- again, active intransitive. "Is coming"
is a progressive form of the verb "to come".
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"And if you're afraid of butter, which many people are nowa-
days, (long pause) you just put in cream." --Julia Child |
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