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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Passive tense or participle as adjective?

I am an ESL tutor, and one of my students asked me why I wrote the sentence, "It's written on the receipt." My first thought was that it was the passive tense/voice, but I started to doubt that.

Here's more of the context (a dialog):

Employee: "We have a no-return policy on sales items. I'm sorry."

Customer: "I didn't realize that..."

Employee: "It's written on the receipt. Right here."

Is it passive tense, or something else?

Also, I'm not positive about this phrase as well (the heading to the above dialog): "Returning something that was purchased on sale."

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide!
  

Top answer

They both seem to me to be clearly passive voice here: It's written (by our management) on the receipt; It was purchased (by the customer) on sale. Of course, some of these structures take on adjectival qualities when the agent is more than hidden; it is almost forgotten, as in 'I'm tired'.

— Mister Micawber

  • They both seem to me to be clearly passive voice here: It's written (by our management) on the receipt; It was purchased (by the customer) on sale.
  • Of course, some of these structures take on adjectival qualities when the agent is more than hidden; it is almost forgotten, as in 'I'm tired'.
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2 Answers
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They both seem to me to be clearly passive voice here: It's written (by our management) on the receipt; It was purchased (by the customer) on sale.

Of course, some of these structures take on adjectival qualities when the agent is more than hidden; it is almost forgotten, as in 'I'm tired'.
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You may be interest in what I have written about the passive voice and

CB
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