Revision questions: passive voice and causative structures
- What is the theme of the message in a passive sentence: the agent or the recipient of the action?
- Can we form the passive voice in any tense?
- Do infinitives and gerunds have passive forms?
- Can you think of verbs which are always passive?
- What is a ditransitive verb? How do we use ditransitive verbs in the passive?
- What is the difference between an agent and an instrument?
- In which of the following sentences can the agent phrase be omitted?
Ulysses was written by James Joyce.
My car was stolen by someone yesterday.
Brown was elected president twice by the people of his country.
The bomb was found by children playing football.
At the trial, Jones was found guilty by the jury.
- When is get used instead of be in the passive voice?
- Which reporting verbs are often used in the passive voice?
- In which causative structure(s) can we use get instead of have?
- Which causative structure(s) can express accidents or misfortunes?
- How do we form the passive of make + object + bare infinitive?
