Grammar?!
1) I am not allowed to leave home until my mother arrives.
2) God is believed to have given you the very gift you possess.
3) She was asked by the policeman to pull over because one of her car's tail light was out.
4) I was given a special gift by my parents.
I can not understand this grammar rule which is being applied to the examples above. I mean, for example, shouldn't it be '' The policeman asked her to pull over because...'' instead of ''She was asked by the policeman...'' or ''My parents gave me a special gift'' instead of ''I was given...''?
Is this some kind of grammar structure?
I would really appreciate it if you could explain all of this to me and also gave me a few more examples.
Thanks in advance.
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Answers · 5
3
These structures are called the 'passive voice' in English, and we use it all the time! It's used to put the focus/emphasis on the person or object experiencing the action, not doing the action.
For example 'I was shown around the office'. In this sentence, the person guiding you around the office is not important, so we don't mention them. Another example would be 'The window was left open'. Here, we either 1) don't know who did it, or 2) don't care who did it, so we use the passive. If we did know, or if it were important we would say 'HE left the window open' or 'the builder left the window open' etc.
I hope this helps you!
2
The difference in the two sentence structures is that of Voice. Or in other words, whether the doer of the action or the receiver of the action is the focus/protagonist of the sentence. The focus/protagonist of the sentence is called it's subject. It is basically just what or who the sentence is talking about. The rest of the sentence is called a predicate.
For example, in case of "My parents gave me a special gift", the action being done is that of "giving" the doer of the action is "My parents" or just "parents" and the receiver is "me". The Subject of the sentence is also "Parents" because that is what the sentence is focussing on. And whatever is being said about "Parents" would be called a predicate. So, "gave me a special gift" is the predicate of the sentence. When the doer (in this case, "Parents")of the Action ("Gave") is the subject, the sentence is said to be in active voice.
On the other hand
In case of "I was given a special gift by my parents", the action is still that of "giving"; the doer is still "parents" or "My parents" for that matter, and reciever is also the same (the speaker of the sentence) but the focus or Subject of the Sentence has changed from "My parents" to "I", which is also the receiver of the action of "giving". When the receiver of the action is the subject, the sentence is said to be in Passive voice.
I hope this clears your doubt. Do feel free to ask more questions.
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