ACTIVE OR PASSIVE?
Khaliqur Rahman
I was asked if They have been married could be seen as passive voice. The short answer to this query can be given in No. And, the long answer is: If it is passive, what is its active? If you look at I was asked and They have been married, they appear to be passive. If they’re both passive, it should be possible to change them into active.
You can say He asked me instead of I was asked. But can you say something like they married… instead of They have been married ? No, you possibly can’t. You’d go as far as They married and then get stuck there!
This happened because you treated married in They have been married as the main verb. Married, here, can be replaced by husband and wife because you can say They have been husband and wife where husband and wife is a noun phrase. Therefore, married in this sentence, in fact, functions in the noun-slot. They’ve been what? They’ve been husband and wife or They’ve been married. Now, They’ve been husband and wife is an active sentence. Therefore, They’ve been married is an active sentence, too. Thus, the long answer is the same as the short answer No. One should remember that passive voice is possible only if the verb is transitive. A transitive verb is denoted by vt in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and an intransitive verb by vi.
Passivization of vi is sometimes possible with the help of a preposition. For example, you can say That room hasn’t been slept in for years, Active of which is People haven’t slept in that room for years or No one has slept in that room for years, Here people or No one is the implied subject which need not be mentioned in the passive construction.
Let’s look at some more examples. You can say The dining room table is covered with a white cloth or The garden is enclosed by a fence. These are passive constructions because you can transform them into active and say A white cloth covers the dining room table (Agent Active) or They cover the dining room table with a white cloth (Actor Active) or A fence encloses the garden (Agent Active) or They enclose the garden with a fence (Actor Active). Here, in each Actor Active sentence They is the implied subject ie Actor. The other point to notice is the fact (which most of us ignore) that passive voice is just not another alternative to active voice. You normally choose passive voice when the action is more important than the actor. Have you ever read a poem in passive voice?!
Then, what is more important? The dining room table or a white cloth? The garden or a fence? When you say The dining room table is covered with a white cloth, you are highlighting The dining room table. But when you say A white cloth covers the dining room table you are highlighting a white cloth. But when you say They cover the dining room table you’re highlighting They which is unnecessary because that is implied anyway. That’s the reason why Actor Active is less frequent than Agent Active and most often both are preferably replaced by a passive construction.
Agent Active is not always possible as in The dirty linen is put in a basket and (is) sent to the laundry simply because there’s no agent. Actor Active here would be ridiculous. Would they say We put the dirty linen in a basket and send (it) to the laundry? Passive voice here, then, is the automatic choice.
