Passives

📄️ Passive structures and verb forms

Passive verb forms

In a passive clause, we usually use by to introduce the agent – the person or thing that does the action, or that causes what happens. (Note, however, that agents are mentioned in only about 20 per cent of passive clauses.)

📄️ Passive modal structures: "It can be done tomorrow."

Modal structures can be passivised.

📄️ "get" as passive auxiliary: "He got caught."

Get + past participle can be used to make passive structures in the same way as be \+ past participle. This structure is mostly used in an informal style. It is often used to talk about events that happen by accident, unexpectedly, or outside one’s control, and that have good or bad consequences.

📄️ Verbs with two objects in the passive

Many verbs, such as give, send, show, lend, pay, promise, refuse, tell, offer, can be followed by two objects, an ‘indirect object’ and a ‘direct object’. These usually refer to a person (indirect object) and a thing (direct object). Two structures are possible.