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III. Passive, to be concerned.

This occurs in some senses which are non-existent or obsolete in the active; in other senses it is much more used than the active.

https://www.oed.com/oed2/00046215

Are there passives without a corresponding active?

GJC
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  • What concerns you here? – tchrist Aug 21 '21 at 17:54
  • Be concerned, like be amused, be irritated, and be exhausted, is a predicate adjective originally formed from a past participle. It is not a passive verb form. Like all predicate adjectives, it requires a be auxiliary. This is not the be of the passive, however, and even the OED is not authoritative in syntactic matters. – John Lawler Aug 21 '21 at 19:14
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    Your edit makes the question make sense now, but it's still pretty deficient. You're kind of wondering aloud if there's such a thing as a grin without a cat. That may well be possible, but start us off with some examples of cats and grins. – Mitch Aug 23 '21 at 16:06

3 Answers3

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It's the normal grammatical definition of the passive voice, in which the object of a transitive verb is made into the subject.

For example, if a sentence in the active is:

I gave my roommate a ride,

the passive would be

My roommate was given a ride by me.

To see what the OED is talking about in that some of the meanings of concern are only used in the passive, one of the meanings for which the active of concern is not used is

  1. a. To be in a relation of practical connexion with; to have to do with; to have a part or share in; to be engaged in, with:

1875 Jowett Plato Music is concerned with harmony and rhythm.

This sentence sounds fine, but if you put this in the active you get:

Harmony and rhythm concern music,

which sounds really wrong.

Peter Shor
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  • Maybe it's an adjective actually? https://oed.com/oed2/00046220 – GJC Aug 21 '21 at 18:00
  • Also, I specifically bolded non-existent in the active, so the active -> passive derivation is only possible synchronically? – GJC Aug 21 '21 at 18:05
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    @GJC Your question remains almost completely opaque to me. I cannot understand what you are really asking or do not understand. But I note that the OED3 lays this out rather differently. – tchrist Aug 21 '21 at 21:17
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    Relevant to the question, the OP should note that the passive can be identified by how it's used regardless of the existence of an active form: if you see a sentence "The ball was fooed by John" you can guess it's passive even if you don't know the active verb to foo. Or more technically, if something can be used like other passives, it's probably a passive. Hence "concerned" is (arguably) a grammatical passive, if it functions like a passive (which is debatable but the OED2 seems to assume). Linguistics has moved away from essentialist definitions to ones based on how a word is used. – Stuart F Aug 21 '21 at 23:05
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Are there passives without a corresponding active?

There might be. It is difficult to find completely clear examples. Sometimes, the word actually has been used (rarely) in the active voice; sometimes, its unclear whether a form that looks like a past participle is being used in a "verbal" participle construction, or merely a "departicipial" adjective. (The analysis of the distinction between verbal participles and departicipial adjectives is also disputed and can be unclear in some situations.)

Some potential candidates for passive expressions without corresponding active forms in use, aside from the mentioned use of to be concerned, are to be born, to be rumored, and to be reputed (the last two are mentioned in "A corpus study of some rare English verbs", by Laurie Bauer).

I discuss "rumored" in the linked post.

herisson
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  • Can you not give a complete example? Are you suggesting to be concerned or born, to be rumored or reputed can never be active? – Robbie Goodwin Aug 25 '21 at 21:48
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Active is something you do - e.g. I flew the aircraft.

Passive is something done to you - e.g. I was flown by the airline to my destination.

Nemo
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