Active to Passive Voice

Question

How should these sentences be changed into the passive voice?1. The farmer worked in the field.2. The beautiful girl stood in the middle of the yard.

Tenjing · Accepted Answer

The verbs 'work' and 'stand' are not transitive verbs. So, they can't be made active into passive.

Hole One a New See · Answer

Hi Shaalom,

As far as I know, it is impossible without transitive (use of) verb. "worked' and "stood" are without direct object. So it is an intransitive usage of these verbs (i.e. 'work' and 'stay').

By the way, I'm not a native English speaker or a teacher of English.

Please wait for a more appropriate answer.

CalifJim · Answer

ShaalomHow should these sentences be changed into the passive voice?1. The farmer worked in the field.2. The beautiful girl stood in the middle of the yard.

To change a sentence to passive voice, you must first find the object of the verb. If there is no object, passive voice is impossible. Does that help?

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

If you look at the verbs as compound verbs, "worked in" and "stood in," rather than just the simple verbs "worked" and "stood," then the verbs are transitive-like, and the passive versions are:

The field was worked in by the farmer.

The middle of the yard was stood in by the beautiful girl.

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymous... passive versions are:The field was worked in by the farmer.The middle of the yard was stood in by the beautiful girl.

I guess there's one in every crowd.

This is such an unusual subset of the passives that it may only confuse the OP. Nevertheless, we may as well say something about this topic now that it has been brought up.

In such cases the success of the resulting passive construction depends on a few factors. One is that the preposition is practically the only one that goes with the verb and that it doesn't have a literal meaning. Another is that the subject of the passive is affected in some way by the action described. "to deal with" is such a case, so you might have The problem was dealt with by the head of the committee.

In the first case you can have "worked on", "worked through", "worked with", and others, so the preposition "in" is not uniquely connected with "work". Also "in" has its literal meaning here. For that reason, "was worked in" doesn't seem like it should be a very successful passive. Nevertheless, the subject of the passive (field) is affected by the action of "being worked in", so we might wish to accept The field was worked in by the farmer as somewhat successful as a passive.

In the second case the success is much more dubious. You can have "stand on", "stand for", "stand with", "stand around", and others, and "in" is clearly literal in "in the yard". Further, the middle of the yard is not affected by the presence of the girl. It's just her location. Given two strikes against it, I think we'd have to say that The middle of the yard was stood in by the beautiful girl is not particularly successful as a passive construction.

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

I see the points CJ is making, and accept that there may be borderline cases, but both of the passive sentences Anon came up with are, except for a possible attempt at humour, completely unacceptable, in my opinion.

CalifJim · Answer

How about "worked on" instead of "worked in"? Would you accept it?

Has your car ever been worked on by a really knowledgeable mechanic?

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

That's fine. Here 'work on' is in effect functioning as transitive multi-word verb. The mechanic is not on the car working - he may even be under the car working. He is attempting to repair the car.

Active to Passive Voice

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