3

Now, a friend over the internet wanted me to explain the passive voice to him. He began by providing his story's "readability statistics" of Microsoft Word, which said that 7% of his sentences were passive. Luckily, this story was at my disposal, so I investigated whether the statistic was correct or not. Then I came to this sentence:

There was something placed on the table...

First off, existential sentences are "newish" to me, but I believe that to be one. I also believe it's passive, but I'm unsure. I made several google searches, with only one outside of google books (the book was probably too advanced for me) talking about it. Now the reason that I think that is passive is the same reason why the person made that post (but in reverse). When turned into a nonexistential sentence it is passive (EDIT: I've been notified that the nonexistential sentence doesn't correspond to was placed but rather had been placed):

Something had been placed on the table [by X]...

Although, another reading could be that it isn't passive. Placed on the table may be seen as a (past) participial phrase modifying something. This interpretation seems untenable to me.

So am I right to think that this is a passive existential sentence?

Jasper Locke
  • 1,621
  • 2
    A percentage of 7% of sentences being passive is *excellent. The advice should not be "avoid the passive voice"; it should be "don't overuse the passive voice"; 7% is not* overusing it. This web page advises that no more than 10% should be in passive voice, and even that is a much stricter bound than you really need. – Peter Shor Aug 19 '14 at 12:28
  • @PeterShor, I agree; I haven't responded to him yet because I wanted to investigate whether Word was being a computer and labeling anything with were/was/etc+past participle verb as a passive construction. – Jasper Locke Aug 19 '14 at 12:33
  • 2
    Not only computers label sentences as passive when they shouldn't — overzealous Strunk&White adepts (as well as S&W themselves!) have been known to do the same thing. Maybe they evolved into the Word grammar-checker... – oerkelens Aug 19 '14 at 13:12
  • Actually, the equivalent of There was something placed on the table is Something had been* placed on the table. Was placed* means something different. – Tim Lymington Aug 20 '14 at 14:07
  • @TimLymington, you're right, thanks. I'll edit it in. – Jasper Locke Aug 20 '14 at 15:06
  • 1
    I don't understand your first sentence ... ? – Araucaria - Him Aug 23 '14 at 00:03
  • @f.e., Jasper I must rather sheepishly admit that, actually, I'm not absolutely suret about that. If it's possible that placed is an adjective, then the relative clause is ambiguous between which was placed on the table and which had been placed on the table. The fist would be a (complex intransitive) adjectival passive, the second a verbal or be-passive. A third option, the least likely, is that the clause contains a past simple verbal passive (ie it's describing an action taking place). In any case though, it's still, I believe, a case of whiz deletion. – Araucaria - Him Aug 23 '14 at 10:41
  • Not that this was the main thrust of your question, but the sentence is not using passive voice according to MS Word. – Zairja Aug 25 '14 at 21:58

3 Answers3

5

The main verb is copular was with dummy subject there. It is impossible to cast that into the passive voice. something is the complement which has the participle placed that the CGEL calls a bare passive clause.

The sentence has one independent clause and that one is not passive. However, it does have a second clause (placed on the table) which is.

user0721090601
  • 1,686
  • Downvoter want to explain? Existential "there is" cannot be used for the passive. – user0721090601 Aug 20 '14 at 19:16
  • +1, a good solid answer and explanation. I wasn't expecting to see this type of grammatical answer on ELU. :) – F.E. Aug 20 '14 at 23:14
  • @guifa, is dummy there subject though? If you change something to, for example, two things, the verb was needs to become were to agree with it. Aside from that, I believe you may be correct in that the sentence is not passive but does have a bare passive clause. By the way, what's the corresponding "full" passive clause? – Jasper Locke Aug 21 '14 at 06:50
  • Full passive would be "There is something that's placed on the table". You just hit on two controversies in English grammar in your comment — the status of there in existential copula (most, but not all, consider it a pronoun) and the agreement of the verb with the number ("there's two things" works for a surprising number of a speakers). Formal writing mandates the agreement, but speech it's the wild West – user0721090601 Aug 21 '14 at 10:43
  • @guifa are those two really that controversial? I've never seen any articles as addressing them as controversial. I suppose I should add a disclaimer about that was to were thing because it could make some cross. As you seem to be familiar with CGEL, do you recommend buying it? I myself have been considering it. – Jasper Locke Aug 21 '14 at 11:35
  • @JasperLocke Traditionally, there is considered an adverb in that structure, making the predicative nominative seen as the subject (There[adv] is[v] a dog[subj]). Re the CGEL, I absolutely recommend it, it's fantastically well written and comprensive. They do propose some new terminology and propose a different set of parts of speech, but with very good reason (at least, they convinced me :) ) – user0721090601 Aug 21 '14 at 11:59
  • @guifa What if existential there is acting like anticipatory it with the true subject postponed and therefore it (there) is not an adverb nor a subject? That seems plausible to me. ReRe CGEL, yes, I previewed a few pages of it and saw that they did away with pronouns, something that I disagree with. I could understand altering that word class by turning it into "pro-forms", as Quirk et al. did. – Jasper Locke Aug 21 '14 at 13:39
  • Oh, I forgot to mention: I suspected that a full passive clause would be a relative clause. Thanks for confirming my hunch! – Jasper Locke Aug 21 '14 at 15:37
  • 2
    @JasperLocke and guifa, perhaps someone could discuss (in an answer post or in the original question post) an example like: "There were hidden in his in-tray no fewer than thirty unpaid bills." :) – F.E. Aug 21 '14 at 17:55
  • @JasperLocke I'm not sure where the dissolution of the pronoun class came from, they're still fully recognised as pronouns in CaGEL, but reanalysed as a subcategory of the class of Nouns. It seems to me that it's kind of reasonable to view I in I ate the apple as a type of noun, even though it is of course a special type of noun ... :) – Araucaria - Him Aug 23 '14 at 12:37
3

This is an example of Whiz deletion. The sentence is short for:

  • There was something which had been placed on the table...

The relative pronoun which and the past perfect form of BE (had been) have been omitted. This is a type of reduced relative clause. For more info on Whiz deletion see this post of John Lawler's on Whiz deletion, and also visit the link therein.

The upshot of this is that your sentence is not a passive 'existential' sentence. It is a case of an 'existential' sentence containing a relative clause. The relative clause is modifying the noun something, and this clause does indeed contain a passive.

Hope this helps!

Community
  • 1
Araucaria - Him
  • 47,146
  • Let me ask that question here, so that you can fatten up your answer-post. :) . . . Could you explain why the following example is, or is not, a passive existential sentence: "There were hidden* in his in-tray no fewer than thirty unpaid bills."* (and because it is an appropriate example w.r.t. this thread.) -- By "passive existential", I mean that the main clause is passive (that is, having a passive clause as a modifier within an NP isn't enough, nor is having a passive clause as an element enough). – F.E. Aug 23 '14 at 13:03
  • Ok, I'll give it a go. I'm not going to try and untangle the head NP no fewer than thirty unpaid bills though!!! – Araucaria - Him Aug 23 '14 at 14:05
  • Seeing as I wish not to overfill the original post's comments, I'm going ask a few questions here. First, is complex intransitive just another way of saying copular? Second, is adjectival passive another term for an adjective that is a participle, i.e., broken? Finally, is a verbal (or be-passive, which I assume after inspecting the student's version of CGEL on google books is to distinguish it from other passives, e.g. the get-passive) just simply a participle verb? – Jasper Locke Aug 23 '14 at 14:10
  • @JasperLocke I was just copying their label from their diagram but in short, complex intranstive is, yes a verb with a PC and no DO (as opposed to both eg I consider this a problem). 'Verbal passive' was just my way of distinguishing a normal passive construction from an 'adjectival passive'. As for that last one, am still researching exactly what they mean, but am beginning to suspect it is just a case of an adjective PC which indicates that something was done/is done to the predicand, specifically an adjective with a form identical to a past participle. – Araucaria - Him Aug 23 '14 at 19:35
  • "I'm not going to try and untangle the head" -- Oh, no, please don't parse down that low! :) . . . (Also, consider: "Could there be hidden in one of those space saucers sitting down there in the field his long lost sister?") – F.E. Aug 23 '14 at 20:09
  • @JasperLocke Yes, what Araucaria was saying: a verbal passive is a true passive (uses a past-participle verb form--let's ignore the concealed passives for now). An adjectival passive is not a true passive, but it can often look like one because it uses an adjective that has the shape of a past-participle verb form. Roughly speaking, that is: for the term adjective passive applies only to a PC, while the term verbal passive applies to a clause. – F.E. Aug 23 '14 at 20:13
-4

I think this construction is, in fact, using a past participle. Further, because it uses a past participle it is definitely passive voice (which I believe is a different conclusion than you were expecting!) Here is a well written example from UNC at Chapel Hill:

Once you know what to look for, passive constructions are easy to spot. Look for a form of “to be” (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. (The past participle is a form of the verb that typically, but not always, ends in “-ed.” Some exceptions to the “-ed” rule are words like “paid” (not “payed”) and “driven.” (not “drived”). Here’s a sure-fire formula for identifying the passive voice:
form of “to be” + past participle = passive voice
For example:
The metropolis has been scorched by the dragon’s fiery breath.
When her house was invaded, Penelope had to think of ways to delay her remarriage.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/passive-voice/

While this quotation works very well with modern English, it is possible to come across "be" with a past participle of intransitive verbs, this reflects an older construction in which it was possible to make the present perfect with "be", rather than "have". Remnants of this construction exist today and are exceptions to the rule claimed by this quotation. Intransitive verbs cannot be passive voice.

By the way you may want to review this entire document as it's very on-point with the rules of use of passive voice in writing, at least as taught by a typical American university.

As to the second part of your question, yes, the use of "there" as the subject makes this sentence an existential sentence. So this is a passive, existential sentence as you suspected (but perhaps for slightly different reasons than you expected).

Brillig
  • 2,377