Passive voice and resultant state

Question

I am a bit confused with passive voice.Let me give some examples with questions:1)Soup is eaten. (It is a resultant state and there is not more soup);Soup is eaten with spoon. (It is present simple passive, soup usually is eaten with spoon);The door is open. (resultant state, the door is now open);The door is opened at 8. (passive voice).Questions:1.1) What the difference between "Soup is eaten with spoon." and "Soup eats with spoon."?1.2) Why resultant state for a door is "open" and sentence "The door is opened."  without agent does not make sense? 1.3) What another verbs do not use as resultant state ("like open");1.4) I understand difference between "Soup has just been eaten" and "Soup was eaten yesterday", but what action time is supposed for "Soup is eaten"?2)Folder is removed.Operation is completed.Bug is fixed.Transaction is started.File is not found.2.1) All these sentences express resultant state? Are these sentences correct (may be some of used verbs can no be used as resultant state)?2.2) When sentence is started with when or if (like this sentence) or contains an agent (Bug is fixed by me) it is the passive voice, right?3) Door opened.File found.Bug fixed.3.1) What do these sentences mean exactly? Is it passive or active or resultant state? What type of time is used here?3.2) What the difference "The door is open" and "The door opened"?--Thanks in advance.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

1. "Soup is eaten." is not correct. It should be "The soup is eaten.", that is, all of the soup has been eaten by the people dining here. This is not really passive voice. It's simply a linking verb situation with an adjective. You're essentially saying: "The soup is all gone." or "The soup has been all eaten up."

This is an interesting question, because if you say: "I eat the soup.", then the passive of this is "The soup is eaten by me.", which is close to "The soup is eaten.", but emphasis here is different from the above. Here there is no sense of the soup being all gone, but rather you have the action of a person eating soup.

"Soup is eaten with spoon." is not correct. It should be "Soup is eaten with a spoon." This could be considered the passive of "I eat soup with a spoon.", but like the above, it is not really passive, but rather a statement of fact: "Soup is eaten with a spoon (rather than with a fork).

1.1 "Soup eats with spoon." is ungrammatical.

1.2 "The door is open." is not passive but rather a statement of fact: "The door is open (not closed). "The door is opened." is not used in English - it's incomplete. The door is opened at 9 is correct and is passive voice: The door is opened at 9 (by the staff)."

1.3 I don't understand what you mean here.

1.4 It should be "The soup had just been eaten.", that is, "The soup has just been all eaten up.", which is similar in sense to "The soup is eaten." It should be "The soup was eaten yesterday.", that is, "The soup was all eaten up yesterday." These are not really passive but rather statements of fact.

Anonymous · Answer

2. These five sentences are okay but are unusual and would only be used in a specific context, for example:

"Here is a security camera video of the high security area. Here the unidentified person enters the room. He goes to the locked cabinet where the folders are kept. He produces a key for the cabinet. Cabinet is opened (passive because the person is clearly doing the action - cabinet is opened by the unidentified person). Folder is removed (passive)."

3. These three sentences are okay, but again they are unusual and similar to the sentences in 2. For example:

"This is a security camera video of the corridor leading to the high security area. Here an unidentified person walks down the corridor towards the high security area. He produces a key for the door. Door opened (passive - the person is clearly doing the action: door opened by the unidentified person)."

Passive voice and resultant state

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