--- title: In the active voice the doer comes first: "The cat chased the mouse.… — Active and passive voice, modal verbs · tree and pragmatics description: In the active voice the doer comes first: "The cat chased the mouse." In the passive voice the thing the action happens to comes first: "The mouse was chased by the cat." Who acts: doer, cat, action, thing. A sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the english course of Mov --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/0/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / [Active and passive voice, modal verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/) / 0 # Active and passive voice, modal verbs, sentence 0 In the active voice the doer comes first: "The cat chased the mouse." In the passive voice the thing the action happens to comes first: "The mouse was chased by the cat." **Who acts:** doer, cat, action, thing · **What happens:** come, chase, happen · **To what, where:** active voice, mouse, thing, passive voice · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the english course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doer, cat, action, thing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = school:english:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson:0 # text = In the active voice the doer comes first: "The cat chased the mouse." In the passive voice the thing the action happens to comes first: "The mouse was chased by the cat." # source = school lesson (ours) # course = english # lesson = 032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change 1 In in ADP IN _ 4 case _ _ 2 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 4 det _ _ 3 active active ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 4 amod _ _ 4 voice voice NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 obl _ _ 5 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 doer doer NOUN NN Number=Sing 7 nsubj _ _ 7 comes come VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 8 first first ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 7 advmod _ _ 9 : : PUNCT : _ 13 punct _ _ 10 " " PUNCT `` _ 13 punct _ _ 11 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 12 det _ _ 12 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 nsubj _ _ 13 chased chase VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ _ 14 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 15 det _ _ 15 mouse mouse NOUN NN Number=Sing 13 obj _ _ 16 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ 17 " " PUNCT '' _ 7 punct _ _ 18 In in ADP IN _ 21 case _ _ 19 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 21 det _ _ 20 passive passive ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 21 amod _ _ 21 voice voice NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 obl _ _ 22 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 23 det _ _ 23 thing thing NOUN NN Number=Sing 28 nsubj _ _ 24 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 25 det _ _ 25 action action NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 nsubj _ _ 26 happens happen VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 23 acl:relcl _ _ 27 to to PART TO _ 28 mark _ _ 28 comes come VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 7 parataxis _ _ 29 first first ADV RB NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord 28 advmod _ _ 30 : : PUNCT : _ 35 punct _ _ 31 " " PUNCT `` _ 35 punct _ _ 32 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 mouse mouse NOUN NN Number=Sing 35 nsubj:pass _ _ 34 was be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 35 aux:pass _ _ 35 chased chase VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 7 parataxis _ _ 36 by by ADP IN _ 38 case _ _ 37 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 38 det _ _ 38 cat cat NOUN NN Number=Sing 35 obl _ _ 39 . . PUNCT . _ 7 punct _ _ 40 " " PUNCT '' _ 7 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: changed voice=narrator | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **come** | present | the doer | | | the active voice | | first *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **chase** *in a quote* | past | the cat | the mouse | | | | | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouse=Theme | | 3 | **happen** | present | the action | the thing *not said here* | | | | | tree rules | | 4 | **come** | present | the thing | | | the passive voice | | first *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in voice=Location | | 5 | **chase** *in a quote* | past · passive | the cat | the mouse | | | | | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme | One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree. **Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:english:032-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs.lesson:0`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/). - ← previous: [Tense consistency and verb forms, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/31-tense-consistency-and-verb-forms/18/) - next →: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/1/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/)