章振邦《新编英语语法》Lecture_15课件 - 副本.pptVIP

英语语法（二） 贵州师范学院外国语学院 王勇 2015.02.28 Unit 15 Passive Voice(2) 15.1 Uses of passive sentences In this section we are going to deal with cases where the passive is used and two related types of passive sentences. 1. Cases where the passive is used The use of the passive is determined by many factors. The following may serve as a general guide: a) The passive is used when we are more interested in the event itself than in the agent, eg: Hundreds of passengers were killed in the crash. Everything under the sun is sold on the bazaar from hairpins to camels. 1. Cases where the passive is used b) The passive is used when the agent is unknown or when we wish to make a statement sound impersonal perhaps out of modesty or tactfulness, eg: This book was published in the 16th century. This proposal was generally considered as not very practical. 1. Cases where the passive is used c) The passive is used and the agent with by is expressed when we wish to stress the doer of the action, eg: Who invented the telephone?→It was invented by Graham Bell. 1. Cases where the passive is used The use of the passive is usually dictated by the context. Sometimes the passive form is used to avoid changing the subject in the middle of a sentence and at other times, to achieve a better connection with the preceding of following sentences, eg: Jack fought Michael in the mens singles and (Jack) was beaten. He visited Chinas northeastern provinces in 1935. Those provinces were being overrun by the Japanese invaders. 1. Cases where the passive is used In many cases, the chonice between the active and the passive depends on the semantic intention implied by the context, eg: It rained heavily last night. The rain destroyed the flowers. A: The flowers are all gone. What happened to them? B: They (The flowers) were destroyed by the rain. All this boinls down to one point: active and passive forms are structurally interchangeable, but semantically only one form is possible in a specific context. 2. Two r