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introduced by
by.
The agent may or may not be mentioned.
My purse was found by
one of the cleaners.
A new road has been built.
An object which causes something to happen is called an instrument,
introduced by
with.
He was hit on the head with
a hammer.
Verbs with two objects
Verbs which have two objects can be made passive in two ways.
I
was handed
a note. A note
was handed
to me.
Other common verbs of this type are:
bring, give, lend, pass, pay, promise, sell, send, show, tell
Verbs with
object and complement
Some verbs have a noun or adjective which describes their object.
We elected Jim
class representative.
Everyone considered him
a failure.
When these are made passive, the complement goes directly after the verb.
Jim was elected
class representative.
He was considered
a failure.
Verbs which can't be passive
Most verbs with an object (transitive verbs) can be made passive:
e.g.
drive
is transitive because one can
drive
something
(a car).
However, a few transitive verbs may not be used in the passive. These
include:
become, fit
(be the right size),
get, have, lack, let, like, resemble, suit.
Verbs with no object (intransitive) can not be passive:
e.g.
fall
is intransitive, you cannot 'fall something'.
Therefore it is not possible to say The tree was fallen'. Instead the sentence must be active:
The
tree fell.
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