Understanding the Absence of Passive Forms in 'Be' in English

English verbs do not have passive forms. This means that we cannot simply change the form of the verb 'be' to make it passive. Instead, to express passive voice in English, we use the object of the action along with the appropriate form of the verb 'to be' and the passive participle of the action.

The Role of 'Be' as an Intransitive Verb

To begin with, it's important to note that 'be' is an intransitive verb. This means that it does not take an object. The simplest form of 'be' refers to the state of existing. For example, 'He is surprised' expresses a state of being, rather than an action. In this case, 'is' is the present tense form of 'to be'. Similarly, 'He has been surprised' uses 'has been', which combines the present perfect aspect with the passive participle, to express a completed action in the past.

The Elements of Passive Voice

In a passive sentence, the object of the active sentence becomes the subject, and the agent (the doer of the action) is often included in a prepositional phrase beginning with 'by'. The structure of a passive sentence in English typically follows the pattern: Subject was/were (past participle of the main verb).

Examples of Passive Voice

Active: "John saw the accident." (John is the subject, saw is the verb, and the accident is the object.)

Passive: "The accident was seen by John." (The accident becomes the subject, and "was seen" is the passive construction.)

It's important to recognize that the past participle in a passive sentence is not the same as the past tense form. For example, in "The dog was hit", "was" is the auxiliary verb, and "hit" is the past participle.

Why 'Be' Cannot Be Passivized

Although 'be' is a verb that describes a state or condition, it cannot be used in passive constructions. The reason behind this is that 'be' is never a transitive verb. Transitive verbs, on the other hand, do take objects, and these are the verbs that can be passivized.

For example, if we have a sentence like 'I hit the dog', changing it to passive form would be 'The dog was hit by me'. Here, 'hit' is a transitive verb, and to change it to passivized form, we use 'was hit' as the passive construction with 'hit' being the past participle.

The idea of making 'be' passivized would result in a grammatically incorrect construction such as 'John was was'. This is because 'be' cannot be followed by another form of 'be' in a sentence to form a passive construction.

Alternative Phrasing for State of Being

If you're interested in expressing a sense of a subject's state without assigning responsibility or intent, there are alternative ways to phrase it. For instance, instead of saying 'Mitchell is', which implies a certain state or attribute, we can say 'Mitchell continued being'. This phrasing downplays the active responsibility without completely eliminating the concept of state.

For example:

Mitchell was surprised. (This assigns some degree of responsibility or intent to Mitchell.)

Mitchell continued being surprised. (This implies the state of being surprised without assigning the active responsibility.)

This approach helps to maintain the sense of state while minimizing the sense of active responsibility.

In summary, while 'be' does not have a passive form, there are ways to express passive concepts or states of being. The key is to use the appropriate passive construction with the auxiliary verb 'be' and the past participle of the main verb. Understanding these principles will help to use passive voice effectively in English.