Active and Passive sentence difference

Question

Why the following sentence is correct?License validity period has expiredAs in above sentence, the one is affected by an action of the verb is subject, so the above should be called as:License validity period has been expiredAm I correct?

Dimsumexpress · Accepted Answer

English_Learner123License validity period has expired

No, use active voice for anything with time limitation; i.e. contract, warranty and license etc.

English_Learner123 · Answer

Could you please help with some little example?

Dimsumexpress · Answer

The warranty of you car will expire next month.- future active voice.

If you parked you car on the street and fed the meter for an hour while you went inside a restaurant for lunch. You ran into an old classmate and chatted for a while. When you returned to your car, you saw a metermate writing a ticket because the [time of] meter has expired. present perfect active voice.

Does it help?

English_Learner123 · Answer

Thanks for your help.

BillJ · Answer

English_Learner123
Why the following sentence is correct?

License validity period has expired

As in above sentence, the one is affected by an action of the verb is subject, so the above should be called as:

License validity period has been expired

Am I correct?

Hi English_Learner 123

No, I'm afraid not. Your question is partly answered by the fact that the verb expire is an intransitive verb so you can't use it in a passive sentence. Only transitive verbs can form passives, so your second sentence is ungrammatical.

It is objects, not subjects, that are affected by the action of a verb. In your first sentence, there is no object; 'license validity period' is the subject. 'The license validity period' simply expired; the important thing is that no one else caused it to expire, so it can't be seen to be affected by the action of the verb.

If your second sentence was grammatical (which it isn't) then 'license validity period' would indeed be an object affected by the action of the verb because someone would have 'expired it', so to speak. If you compare these sentences with a transitive verb, you'll see the contrast more clearly:

The ship has sunk. (Active voice, subject = ship)

The ship has been sunk (by the enemy). (Passive voice - the object is 'the ship' because it is affected by the action of the verb 'sunk', the 'sinking' having been performed by the enemy. As happens in passives, the object of the active verb (the ship) becomes the passive subject)

Does that help?

BillJ

Active and Passive sentence difference

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