Here you just can't do it! Not all verbs are transitive (passing the action onto someone or something), and only those sentences with transitive verbs can be transformed into the passive voice.
Examples:
transitive: The truck killed the little boy.
The little boy was killed by the truck.
intransitive: The boy died because of the truck. The boy was died by the truck. XXX (incorrect!)
In both examples the agent (the person or thing doing the action) is the truck. The truck can indeed perform the action of the first verb (kill) but not the second (die). Therefore, a passive voice transformation here is impossible.
In the same respect, 'go' as a verb is intransitive. The subject can indeed perform the action, but this action cannot be received by anyone or anything. Exception: Phrasals with 'go,' but here the verb takes on another meaning altogether; by definition and function it is another verb.
In a correct active-passive transformation, the direct object of verb in the active form becomes the subject of the passive sentence and the old subject in the active form becomes the object of the preposition 'by' (or eventually another preposition) in the passive voice form.
Extra note:
- In simple tenses only (simple present, simple past), the verb is constructed by putting to be in the same tense as the main verb in the original sentence followed up by the past participle form of that same verb.
No comments:
Post a Comment