Passive
Further information: Passive voice, English passive voiceThe passive voice is employed in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the verb. That is, it undergoes an action or has its state changed.
The Spanish language and the English language use a periphrastic passive voice; that is, it is not a single word form, but rather a construction making use of other word forms. Specifically, it is made up of a form of the auxiliary verb to be and a past participle of the main verb. In other languages, such as Latin, the passive voice is simply marked on the verb by inflection: librum legit "He reads the book"; liber legitur "The book is read".
Read more about this topic: Voice (grammar)
Famous quotes containing the word passive:
“To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.”
—Simone De Beauvoir (1908–1986)
“The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread.... The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“...if you are to gain any great amount of good from the world, you must attain a passive condition of mind. ...it is never to be forgotten that it is the rest of the world and not you that holds the great share of the world’s wealth, and that you must allow yourself to be acted upon by the world, if you would become a sharer in the gain of all the ages to your own infinite advantage.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)