Note the following prayers:
(1) He built that house.
(2) That house was built by him.
It is possible to notice that these two clauses have different structures. Let's look at them in detail.
In (1), it is clear that the direct transitive verb"built" is in active voice and has a direct object "that house", that is, the verbal process is seen as an action, an activity that originates in the syntactic subject "He".
In (2), the verbal construction changes in relation to the syntactic subject, that is, the subject becomes the patient of the process expressed by the verb and undergoes the verbal action, becoming passive agent.
This change process is known as transformation from active to passive prayer and it has some specificities that we will analyze below.
A sentence that has a direct transitive verb and therefore a direct object can be transformed into a passive sentence by following the steps below:
to the direct object becomes subject:
prayer in active voice |
Subject |
direct transitive verb |
Direct object |
He |
built |
that house. |
Transforming:
prayer in passive voice |
Subject |
Verb in passive analytic voice |
|
That house |
Was built |
by him. |
b) The verb changes to the form passive analytic the same time and mode:
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
prayer in active voice |
Subject |
direct transitive verb |
Direct object |
He |
built |
that house. |
Transforming:
prayer in passive voice |
Subject |
Verb in passive analytic voice |
|
That house |
Was built |
by him. |
c) The subject becomes an agent of the passive:
prayer in active voice |
Subject |
direct transitive verb |
Direct object |
He |
built |
that house. |
Transforming:
prayer in passive voice |
Subject |
Verb in passive analytic voice |
liability agent |
That house |
Was built |
by him. |
Thus, it is possible to observe that the prayer in the passive voice is composed of:
Subject + verb in the analytic passive voice + agent in the passive
See some more examples of this transformation:
prayer in active voice |
prayer in passive voice |
The teacher read the notes. |
The notes were read by the teacher. |
The father bought the gifts. |
The gifts were purchased by the father. |
The man mastered the horse. |
The horse was dominated by man. |
By Mariana Rigonatto
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
RIGONATTO, Mariana. "How to transform a prayer in an active voice into a passive one?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/como-transformar-uma-oracao-na-voz-ativa-passiva.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.