1. Passive Voice 1. Purposes of Passive Voice
2. Structure of Passive Voice Verbs
3. Passive Voice in Tenses
4. Exercises

2. 1. Purposes of Passive Voice
1. When the doer of an action is not known
2. When the object of an action is the emphasis

3. 1.1 When the doer is not known
Example:
The window has been broken. Who has broken it?
In this case, we do not know who broke the window. So, the doer is not known. Instead of starting the sentence with ‘somebody’, ie, ‘Somebody has broken the window.’, we can also start the sentence with the supposed object too, ie, the window.

4. 1.2 When the object of the action is the emphasis
Example:
This murderous killer was sentenced a life’s imprisonment.
In this case, we do not care about who made the judgement. Instead, our emphasis is put on the murderous killer. So, we start the sentence with ‘the killer’ in order to stand out our focus concerned.

5. 2. Structure of Passive Voice Verbs
Syntactic Structure
Active Passive
e.g. eats is eaten
i.e verb be+p.p.
To explain, in a passive verb phrase, the structure is
‘be+p.p.’, in which, ‘be’ is changed according to its tense and number.

6. 3. Passive Voice in Tenses
3.1 Present Tenses
By using the verb ‘eat’,
Tenses Active Passive
Present - Simple eats is eaten
- continuous is eating is being eaten
- perfect has eaten has been eaten
- perfect continuous -has been eating has been being eaten
Note: In passive verb phrases, the last word is always in p.p. form.

7. 3. Passive Voice in Tenses
3.2 Past Tenses
By using the verb ‘eat’,
Tenses Active Passive
Past - Simple ate
- Continuous was eating
- Perfect had eaten
- Perfect continuous -had been eaten

8. -was eaten
-was being eaten
-had been eaten
-had been being eaten

9. 3. Passive Voice in Tenses
3.3 Future Tense
By using the verb ‘eat’,
Tense Active Passive
Future - Simple -will eat
- Continuous will be eating
- Perfect will have eaten
- Perfect continuous will have been eating

10. -will be eaten
-will be being eaten
-will have been eaten
-NIL

11. 4. Exercises Example: People speak Emglish in many countries
Compare: English is spoken in many countries.
Somebody/They pulled down the building last week.
Compare: The old building was pulled down (by then/somebody)last week.
We will hold a meeting tomorrow.
Compare: A meeting will be held tomorrow (by us).
* ( ) means optional.

12. Exercise 1. Somebody cleans our classroom everyday.
2. Japan exported millions of cars last year.
3. Mr. Chan will feed his dog on canned food.

13. Our classroom is cleaned everyday
Millions of cars were exported from Japan last year.
Mr. Chan’s god will be fed on canned food.