English Grammar

Question

Change into Active to Passive Voice.He decided to sell the car.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Hi Ravik;

Welcome to the Forums.

Why would you want to change this to passive?

BillJ · Answer

The verb "decide" is a not transitive, so a passive version is not possible.

BillJ

CalifJim · Answer

ravikumarkarnChange into Active to Passive Voice.

Sorry. This doesn't make sense.

You either change a sentence from active to passive voice or from passive to active voice.

(You can't change that sentence anyway.)

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

BillJThe verb "decide" is a not transitive, so a passive version is not possible.

BillJ

How about this?

In the meeting it was decided by a majority of the members that the fees were too high and should be reduced.

BillJ · Answer

AlpheccaStars
BillJThe verb "decide" is a not transitive, so a passive version is not possible.
BillJ
How about this?
In the meeting it was decided by a majority of the members that the fees were too high and should be reduced.

Transitivity applies to the uses of verbs. Many verbs can occur with or without an object and therefore can be transitive or intransitive. In the OP’s example, “decide” is being used intransitively, as evidenced by the fact that its complement is not an object. A passive version is therefore not possible:*”To sell the car was decided by him”.

“Decide" is a dual-transtivity verb: it can be used transitively to yield, for example, the active “The jury decided their fate” or the passive “Their fate was decided by the jury”. And it can be used intransitively to give "They decided to go to the cinema"

Some constructions, like yours with subject extraposition, permit the passive only.

BillJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Thanks, Bill. I just wanted to clarify for the OP that decide does have its intransitive uses.

Regards,

A-

s

Cool Breeze · Answer

BillJThe verb "decide" is a not transitive, so a passive version is not possible.

In my grammar decide is clearly transitive in the sentence He decided to sell the car. Its object is to sell the car. (What did he decide? To sell the car.) I agree that a passive version isn't possible.

CB

BillJ · Answer

Cool Breeze
BillJThe verb "decide" is a not transitive, so a passive version is not possible.
In my grammar decide is clearly transitive in the sentence He decided to sell the car. Its object is to sell the car. (What did he decide? To sell the car.) I agree that a passive version isn't possible. CB

In this case a passive isn't possible precisely because "decide" is not being used transitively and therefore has no object that can become the subject of a passive version.

A direct object is normally a noun phrase as in "He sold the car". Some subordinate clauses can be objects, but they are essentially only found in complex-transitive clauses:

"This made selling the car an unpleasant experience". The underlined subordinate clause is object and predicand for the predicative complement "an unpleasant experience". The point here is that the subordinate clause could be replaced by an NP object to give "This made the sale an unpleasant experience" where "the sale" is object and "an unpleasant experience" is an objective predicative complement.

The correct analysis of "He decided to sell the car" is that it's a catenative construction where "decide" is a catenative verb and the subordinate clause "to sell the car" is a catenative complement (NOT a direct object).

Your grammar is incorrect in this instance.

BillJ

Cool Breeze · Answer

BillJYour grammar is incorrect in this instance.

Actually, it isn't just my grammar:

"The infinitive may be the object of a verb: He does not need to know more."

Otto Jespersen, Essentials of English Grammar

Professor Jespersen was a learned, broad-minded man who knew and understood that not everyone analysed language the way he and countless other grammarians did and consequently probably wouldn't have taken offence if anyone had disagreed with him.

CB

BillJ · Answer

Cool Breeze
BillJYour grammar is incorrect in this instance.
Actually, it isn't just my grammar:
"The infinitive may be the object of a verb: He does not need to know more."
Otto Jespersen, Essentials of English Grammar
Professor Jespersen was a learned, broad-minded man who knew and understood that not everyone analysed language the way he and countless other grammarians did and consequently probably wouldn't have taken offence if anyone had disagreed with him.
CB

Jespersen does indeed say that infinitives can be objects; not only is "to know more" the object of "need" in "He does not need to know more" in his view, he also applies it to "He need not know more", where a bare infinitival is said to be an object.

I, and leading grammarians today, simply think he's wrong. We don't think these catenative complements are direct objects. Jespersen was a truly great grammarian; but he was not always necessarily right. We don't think he was right on this point.

Grammar is not a finished body of doctrine. There are new discoveries. Things have moved on since Jespersen’s time, and this is one area where they have.

BillJ

English Grammar

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions