Passive and Causative
Reason for using passive
The agent is a long phrase
To avoid personal involvement/responsibility
The agent is ‘people or things in general’
Avoiding ‘you’ in orders and rules
The agent is unknown or obvious
In factual writing when focus is on events, achievements, rather than
agents
Verbs with limited uses in passive
Some verbs can’t change the indirect
object into the subject
Some verb phrases with two objects cannot be passive
NO intransitive verbs in passive
Some verbs are followed by two nouns, but the second
is not an object.
Infinitive and –ing form passive
Active or passive?
The subject is the agent, the sentence is active➔ an
active infinitive
Passive –ing forms (being + -ed), perfect passive –ing
forms (having been + -ed) used...
Report verbs
Something/anything/nothing + to do
The subject is not the agent ➔ passive infinitive
Active and passive infinitives with the same meaning
with there
After verbs normally followed by –ing forms
As the subject of a sentence
As participles, usually with the meaning of because
Causatives
Structures
Active
Passive
Uses
We arrange for somebody to do something for us
Unfortunate experiences