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49
§ 68. The passive voice in English may be found with different types of verbs (mostly transitive) in various
verb phrases; monotransitive (non-prepositional and prepositional) and ditransitive. The subject of the passive
construction may correspond to a direct, an indirect object, or to a prepositional object in the active
construction. Accordingly we discriminate a direct passive construction, an indirect passive construction,
and a prepositional passive construction.
Monotransitive verbs are numerous and almost all of them can form a direct passive construction. These are
the verbs: to take, to do, to make, to build, to discuss, to translate, to hate, to love, to meet and a lot of others.
A new railway is being built near our town.
“A Farewell to Arms” was published in 1929.
You will be met at the station.
Phrasal transitive verbs, that is, such verbs as to blow up, to bring in, to bring up, to carry out, to put on, to
see off, to turn down, etc. are also often used in the passive voice.
The plan was successfully carried out.
The boats are being brought in.
Originally intransitive verbs may form a direct passive construction, as in these examples:
This distance has never been run in five minutes before.
He thought of the lives, that had been lived here for nearly two centuries.
In the vast majority of cases, English transitive verb + object corresponds to the same type in Russian. There
are a number of transitive verbs in English, however, which correspond to Russian verbs followed by an
indirect or a prepositional object, or sometimes an adverbial modifier. These verbs are:
To answer
To approach
To assist
To address
To admire
To affect
To attend
To believe
To contradict
To enjoy
To enter
to follow
to help
to influence
to join
to need
to obey
to speak
to succeed
to threaten
to trust
to watch
Sentences with these verbs are rendered in Russian by means of the indefinite personal constructions with
the verb in the active voice, or if the doer of the action is mentioned of a personal construction with the verb in
the active voice.
We are not trusted, David, but who cares if we are not
innocent.
The British bicycle was much admired.
In the spring of 1925 Hemingway was approached by
two Americans.
Нам не доверяют...
Этим английским велосипедом восхищались.
Весной 1925 года к Хемингуэю подошли два
американца.
A direct passive construction is used in the sentences of the type:
1.
J. F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
The woman was called Brome.
We were kept busy most of the time.
The walls were painted blue.*