Passive Voice - Passive Marking

Passive Marking

Different languages use various grammatical forms to indicate passive voice.

In some languages, such as Latin, passive voice is indicated by verb conjugation (specific verb endings). For example:

• Vīnum (ā) servō portātur. "The wine is carried by the servant."

Compare the following sentence, which gives the same information in the active voice:

• Servus vīnum portat. "The servant carries the wine."

In the passive sentence, the agent (if indicated) is expressed using a noun in the ablative case, in this case servō (the ablative of servus). Different languages use different methods for expressing the agent in passive clauses.

North Germanic languages such as Swedish may also express the passive voice using verb conjugation. For example:

• Vinet bärs av tjänaren. "The wine is carried by the servant."

Compare the active voice:

• Tjänaren bär vinet. "The servant carries the wine."

Here the agent can be expressed by means of a prepositional phrase with the preposition av (equivalent here to the English "by").

The Austronesian language Kimaragang Dusun uses an infix, -in-, to indicate passive voice.

Other languages, such as English (see below), express the passive voice periphrastically, using an auxiliary verb.

Many languages use impersonal verbs to achieve the same purpose.