--- title: The passive uses a form of "be" (is, was, were, has been) plus a pas… — Active and passive voice, modal verbs · tree and pragmatics description: The passive uses a form of "be" (is, was, were, has been) plus a past participle such as eaten, thrown or broken. Who acts: passive. A sentence of the lesson «Active and passive voice, modal verbs» of the english course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cl --- [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/7/) [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/) / 7 # Active and passive voice, modal verbs, sentence 7 The passive uses a form of "be" (is, was, were, has been) plus a past participle such as eaten, thrown or broken. **Who acts:** passive · **What happens:** use, be, have, eat, throw, break · **To what, where:** form, be 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 (passive), 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:7 # text = The passive uses a form of "be" (is, was, were, has been) plus a past participle such as eaten, thrown or broken. # 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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 2 det _ _ 2 passive passive NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 nsubj _ _ 3 uses use VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 5 det _ _ 5 form form NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 obj _ _ 6 of of ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 7 " " PUNCT `` _ 8 punct _ _ 8 be be NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 nmod _ _ 9 " " PUNCT '' _ 8 punct _ _ 10 ( ( PUNCT -LRB- _ 11 punct _ _ 11 is be VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 12 , , PUNCT , _ 13 punct _ Agree=R2-punct-next|Haiku=11:punct 13 was be VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 11 conj _ _ 14 , , PUNCT , _ 3 punct _ _ 15 were be VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 11 conj _ _ 16 , , PUNCT , _ 3 punct _ _ 17 has have VERB VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 conj _ _ 18 been be AUX VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 17 aux _ _ 19 ) ) PUNCT -RRB- _ 17 punct _ _ 20 plus plus CCONJ CC _ 23 cc _ _ 21 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 23 det _ _ 22 past past ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 23 amod _ _ 23 participle participle NOUN NN Number=Sing 5 conj _ _ 24 such such ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 26 case _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=26:compound 25 as as ADP IN _ 24 fixed _ _ 26 eaten eat VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part 23 nmod _ Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=23:acl:relcl 27 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 28 thrown throw VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 26 conj _ Agree=R5-strong|Haiku=23:parataxis 29 or or CCONJ CC _ 30 cc _ _ 30 broken break VERB VBN Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass 28 conj _ _ 31 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} - form: statement - act: assert - voice: narrator - polarity: none - teacher: kept the draft | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **use** | present | the passive | a form of be plus a past participle | | | | | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent form=Patient | | 2 | **be** | present | | | | | | | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 3 | **be** | past | | | | | | | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 4 | **be** | past | | | | | | | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 5 | **have** | participle | | | | | | | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | | 6 | **eat** | participle | | | | | | | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | | 7 | **throw** | participle | | | | | | | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | | 8 | **break** | participle | | | | | | | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient | | 9 | **form** | | | be | | | | | nom form «communication transitive»: of=patient | 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:7`. **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): R2-punct-next ×1, R5-strong ×1, R7-rel-agree ×2. **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: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/6/) - next →: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs, 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/9/) - ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/)