Passive Voice Conundrum

Question

I have recently been debating with someone about the true nature of passive voice. While we both understand that passive voice is when the subject of a sentence receives the action, like "he was hit by the ball", we can't agree about a specific case.

Consider the sentence:
"It is tempting to think about passive voice."

The other individual argues that this is a passive sentence because it is still using an auxiliary verb. For instance, the component "tempting" implies that there must be an infinitive to follow, and thus it's still passive. In other words, it's a passive periphrastic phrase.

I disagree. While the sentence might be a little weak stylistically, it's still grammatically neither active nor passive. In this case, "to be" is being used as a linking verb, so the sentence can't be classified as either.

I was unable to find any good examples about passive and active voice regarding how a sentence constructed this way was classified. Thus, I was hoping someone could shed some light on this befuddling situation. Thanks!

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

The underlying sentence is
To think about passive voice is tempting.
In this form it is obvious that tempting does not require a following infinitive, by the way.
A dummy it replaces the subject and the subject is moved to the end of the sentence. This process creates:
It is tempting to think about passive voice.

This is an extremely common transformation in English. It's called extraposition.

It is not the passive transformation, however. The passive transformation requires an object, and the sentence, being a structure with a linking verb (is), has no object.
CJ

Cool Breeze · Answer

unixfanaticWhile the sentence might be a little weak stylistically, it's still grammatically neither active nor passive.

I know I should keep out of this but I can't help mentioning that if a clause has a finite verb - or a main verb if you prefer that term - it is either active or passive because English doesn't have a third voice, it has only the active and passive voices.
I agree with CJ.
CB

CalifJim · Answer

Cool Breeze it is either active or passive because English doesn't have a third voice, it has only the active and passive voices.

It is active or passive as sent by the speaker, but as received it may be ambiguous. The ambiguity may have to be resolved by considerations of context.
The door was closed.
The glass was broken.
They were married.
CJ

Cool Breeze · Answer

I agree. However, this is again a matter of terminology. In European grammar books it is customary to call all finite verbs structurally passive if they consist of to be + past participle. I don't know about England. Maybe they use the same terminology as Americans.
Your first example is exactly what a Swedish girl called Magda was wondering about a long time ago. She found it difficult to understand that the same structure could be used in two in her opinion completely different sentences and whether she was actually correct in using is closed in both sentences:

The door is closed at nine.
The door is closed all night.
I knew the root of her problem: in Swedish there are three passive structures and completely different verb forms are required in the above sentences. We call is closed structurally passive in both sentences. The first sentence is said to be a passive denoting an act and the second denotes a state. This is explained in many grammar books.
Of course it matters little what terms are used as long as people understand each other. By the way, if the closing of the door should be such a slow process that it took all night, what would that be in English? The door is closed all night, or something else?
CB

Passive Voice Conundrum

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