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In grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis) of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. A syntactic verb argument, in Linguistics, is a Phrase that appears in a relationship with the Verb in a Clause. ). When the subject is the agent or actor of the verb, the verb is in the active voice. According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice.

For example, in the sentence:

The cat ate the mouse

the verb "ate" is in the active voice, but in the sentence:

The mouse was eaten by the cat

the verbal phrase "was eaten" is passive.

In a transformation from an active-voice clause to an equivalent passive-voice construction, the subject and the direct object switch grammatical roles. In Linguistics, a transformational grammar, or transformational-generative grammar ( TGG) is a Generative grammar, especially of a Natural In Grammar, a clause is a word or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some Languages and some types of An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. The direct object gets promoted to subject, and the subject demoted to an (optional) complement. In Grammar the term complement is used with different meanings In the examples above, the mouse serves as the direct object in the active-voice version, but becomes the subject in the passive version. The subject of the active-voice version, the cat, becomes part of a prepositional phrase in the passive version of the sentence, and could be left out entirely.

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The passive voice in English

Main article: English passive voice

The English language uses a periphrastic passive voice; that is, it is not a single word form, but rather a construction making use of other word forms. In English, as in many other languages the Passive voice is the form of Transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the patient, receiving English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States In Linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or relationship is expressed by a Free morpheme (typically one or more Function Specifically, it is made up of a form of the auxiliary verb to be and a past participle of the main verb. In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite In other languages, such as Latin, the passive voice is simply marked on the verb by inflection: poemam legit "He reads the poem"; poema legitur "The poem is read". Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice

The middle voice

Further information: Deponent verb, Reflexive verb, Mediopassive voice and Unaccusative verb

Some languages (such as Sanskrit, Icelandic and Classical Greek) have a middle voice. In Linguistics, a deponent verb is a Verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the In Grammar, a reflexive verb is a Verb whose semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the subject and the direct object are the The mediopassive voice is a Grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the Middle voice and the Passive voice. In Linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an Intransitive verb whose ( syntactic) subject is not a ( semantic) agent; that Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly The middle voice is in the middle of the active and the passive voice because the subject cannot be categorized as either agent or patient but has elements of both. An intransitive verb that appears active but expresses a passive action characterizes the English middle voice. For example, in The casserole cooked in the oven, cooked appears syntactically active but semantically passive, putting it in the middle voice. In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from In Classical Greek, the middle voice is often reflexive, denoting that the subject acts on or for itself, such as "The boy washes himself", or "The boy washes. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly " It can be transitive or intransitive. It can occasionally be used in a causative sense, such as "The father causes his son to be set free", or "The father ransoms his son. "

Many deponent verbs in Latin represent survivals of the Proto-Indo-European middle voice; many of these in turn survive as obligatory pseudo-reflexive verbs in the Romance languages such as French and Spanish. In Linguistics, a deponent verb is a Verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. In Grammar, a reflexive verb is a Verb whose semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the subject and the direct object are the The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people

Other grammatical voices

Some languages have even more grammatical voices. For example, Classic Mongolian features five voices: active, passive, causative, reciprocal and cooperative. The Mongolian language (mn [[ImageMonggol kelesvg 17px]] Mongɣol kele, Cyrillic: Монгол хэл Mongol khel) is the best-known member of

The antipassive voice deletes or demotes the object of transitive verbs, and promotes the actor to an intransitive subject. The antipassive voice is a Verb voice found mostly in ergative languages Like the Passive voice, the antipassive decreases the verb's valency This voice is very common among ergative languages (which may feature passive voices as well), but rare among nominative-accusative languages. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them

There are also phenomena that look at first glance like they change the valence of a verb, but in fact do not. In Linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. So called hierarchical or inversion languages are of this sort. Their agreement system will be sensitive to an external person or animacy hierarchy (or a combination of both): 1 > 2 > 3 or Anim > Inan and so forth. E. g. , in Meskwaki (an Algonquian language), verbs inflect for both subject and object, but agreement markers do not have inherent values for these. "Outagamie" redirects here For the Wisconsin county see Outagamie County Wisconsin. Rather, a third marker, the direct or inverse marker, indicates the proper interpretation: ne-wa:pam-e:-w-a [1-look. at-DIR-3-3Sg] "I am looking at him", but ne-wa:pam-ekw-w-a [1-look. at-INV-3-3Sg] "He is looking at me". Some scholars (notably Rhodes) have analyzed this as a kind of obligatory passivization dependent on animacy, while others have claimed it is not a voice at all, but rather see inversion as yet another kind of alignment type, parallel to nominative/accusative, ergative/absolutive, split-S, and fluid-S alignments. A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive An active-stative language, or active language for short is one in which the sole argument of an Intransitive verb is sometimes marked in the same way An active-stative language, or active language for short is one in which the sole argument of an Intransitive verb is sometimes marked in the same way

The passive voice in topic-prominent languages

Topic-prominent languages like Mandarin tend not to employ the passive voice as frequently. A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its Syntax so that sentences have a topic–comment (or theme–rheme structure in which the Mandarin-speakers construct the passive voice by prefixing the active noun phrase with bei- and rearranging the usual word order. For example, this sentence using active voice:

Note: the first line is in Traditional Chinese while the second is Simplified Chinese.

狗 咬了 這個 男人。
狗 咬了 这个 男人。
Gou yao-le zhege nanren.
dog bite-PAST this man
"A dog bit this man. "

corresponds to this sentence using passive voice:

這個 男人 被 狗 咬了。
这个 男人 被 狗 咬了。
Zhege nanren bei gou yao-le.
This man by dog bite-PAST.
"This man was bitten by a dog. "

In addition, through the addition of the auxiliary verb "to be" (shi) the passive voice is frequently used to emphasise the identity of the actor. This example places emphasis on the dog, presumably as opposed to some other animal:

這個 男人 是 被 狗 咬了。
这个 男人 是 被 狗 咬了。
Zhege nanren shi bei gou yao-le.
This man is by dog bite-PAST.
"This man was bitten by a dog. "

Although a topic-prominent language, Japanese employs the passive voice quite frequently, and has two types of passive voice, one that corresponds to that in English and an indirect passive not found in English. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities This indirect passive is used when something undesirable happens to the speaker.

彼 は 泥棒 に 財布 を 盗まれた。
Kare wa dorobō ni saifu o nusumareta.
He TOPIC thief AGENT wallet OBJECT steal-PASSIVE-PAST
"His wallet was stolen by a thief. "
僕 は 彼女 に 嘘 を 吐かれた。
Boku wa kanojo ni uso o tsukareta.
I TOPIC her AGENT lie OBJECT tell-PASSIVE-PAST.
"I was lied to by her. " (or "She lied to me. ")

The fourth person in Baltic-Finnic languages

Some languages do not contrast voices, but similar-looking persons. For example, Baltic-Finnic languages such as Finnish and Estonian have a "passive", which conceptually postulates a never-mentioned "fourth person" (called "passive" or "common person" in Finnish) rather than varying subjectivity or objectivity. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 For example, translating the sentence "The house was blown down" as Talo puhallettiin maahan would give the idea that some unmentioned person is blowing the house down by the force of his breath. Also, transitivity may be used, such that the fourth-person Ongelma ratkaistiin, which uses the transitive, means "Someone solved the problem", while the fourth-person Ongelma ratkesi uses the anticausative, and means "The problem was solved". In Syntax, a transitive verb is a Verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs An anticausative verb is an Intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event

Celtic languages also possess a person/number inflection called "fourth person", which has been associated with a passive interpretation, though most modern celtic linguage students argue against this. In Gaeilge (simplified modern Irish), the fourth person is called "autonomous", because of the form of the verb conjugation, which is 'autonomous' of a subject. This is usually translated into English as the nebulous "they", "one", or the impersonal "you". For example, the common sign interdicting tobacco consumption:

Ná Cáitear Tabac
Ná cáith-tear tabac
DON'T consume-4thPERS tobacco.

The difference between this 4th person and a true passive, is that to the speaker, the 4th person, or "impersonal" indicates that there is in fact no agent, whereas the passive indicates the demotion of an agent. In English, the formation of the passive allows the optional inclusion of an agent in a prepositional phrase, 'by the man', et c. Where English would leave out the noun phrase, Irish uses the autonomous, where English includes the noun phrase, Irish uses the passive.

Dynamic and static passive

Some languages draw a distinction between static (or stative) passive voice, and dynamic (or eventive) passive voice. Examples include German, Spanish or Italian. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. "Static" means that an action was done to the subject at a certain point in time resulting in a state in the time focussed upon, whereas "dynamic" means that an action takes place.

In German

Static passive auxiliary verb: sein

Dynamic passive auxiliary verb: werden

Ich bin am 20. August geboren ("I was born on August 20", static)

Ich wurde am 20. August geboren ("I became born on August 20", dynamic)

In Spanish

Spanish has three verbs corresponding to English be: ser, estar and haber. Two types of passive voice are formed by them. Ser is used to form the ordinary (dynamic) passive voice:

La puerta es abierta. "The door is opened [by someone]. "
La puerta es cerrada. "The door is closed [by someone]. "

(Note that this construction is very unidiomatic in this case. The usual phrasing would be La puerta se cierra. ) Estar is used to form the static passive voice (not regarded as a passive voice in traditional Spanish grammar):

La puerta está abierta. Spanish' ( español castellano) is a language originating in North-Central Spain which is spoken throughout Spain most countries in the Americas the Philippines and Equatorial "The door is open," i. e. it has been opened.
La puerta está cerrada. "The door is closed," i. e. it has been closed.

In both cases, the verb's participle is used as the complement (as is sometimes the case in English). The verb haber does not form any type of passive voice.

In Italian

Italian uses two verbs (essere and venire) to traslate the static and the dynamic passive:

Dynamic passive auxiliary verb: essere and venire (to be and to come)

La porta è aperta. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. or La porta viene aperta. "The door is opened [by someone]" or "The door comes open [by someone]".
La porta è chiusa. or La porta viene chiusa. "The door is closed [by someone]" or "The door comes closed [by someone]".

Static passive auxiliary verb: essere (to be)

La porta è aperta. "The door is open," i. e. it has been opened.
La porta è chiusa. "The door is closed," i. e. it has been closed.

In Venetian

In Venetian (Vèneto) the difference between dynamic (true) passive and stative (adjectival) passive is more clear cut, using èser (to be) only for the static passives and vegner (to become, to come) only for the dynamic passive:

Ła porta ła vien verta. Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken by over two million people mostly in the Veneto region of Italy. "The door is opened", dynamic
Ła porta ła xè / l'è verta. "The door is open", static

Static forms represents much more a property or general condition, whereas the dynamic form is a real passive action entailing "by someone":

èser proteto. "To be protected = to be in a safe condition", static
vegner proteto. "To be protected = to be defended (by so)", dynamic
èser considarà. "To be considered = to have a good reputation", static
vegner considarà. "To be taken into consideration (by people, by so)", dynamic
èser raprexentà (a l'ONU). "To be represented (at the UN) = to have a representation", static
vegner raprexentà a l'ONU (da un dełegà). "To be represented at the UN (by a delegate)", dynamic

List of voices

Voices found in various languages include:

See also

External links

A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition The adjutative voice is a Grammatical voice carrying the meaning "to help to" The applicative voice is a Grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a Verb to the (core patient argument and indicates the oblique In Grammar, a circumstantial voice, or circumstantial passive voice, is a voice that promotes an oblique argument of a Verb to the An anticausative verb is an Intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event In Linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a Verb, Noun or Adjective from its Principal parts by Inflection In Linguistics, a deponent verb is a Verb that is active in meaning but takes its form from a different voice, most commonly the Dative shifting is a grammatical process by which an oblique argument of a Verb, usually one functioning as a recipient or a benefactive (roles often expressed E-Prime, short for English-Prime, is a modified English Syntax and vocabulary lacking all forms of the verb To be: be is am In English, as in many other languages the Passive voice is the form of Transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the patient, receiving In Linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate.
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