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# 28. Voice and the passive

French has one periphrastic passive, *être* + past participle (*La maison a été construite en 1900*), and several constructions that do part of its work: the reflexive or "middle" passive with *se* (*Ce livre se lit facilement*), the impersonal passive (*Il a été décidé que …*), the passive of experience with *se faire* + infinitive (*Il s'est fait voler sa voiture*), and, above all in speech, the active with the indefinite subject *on* (*On a volé ma voiture*). Only a direct object can become the subject of a passive. The written language uses the *être* passive freely; speech uses it a quarter as often and almost never with an agent. This chapter gives the *être* passive, its restrictions and the three readings of *être* + participle, the agent, the *se* passive and the other pronominal verbs, the impersonal passive, *se faire* + infinitive, *on*, and what decides the choice of voice, with the UD analysis and counts. The forms of the participle and its agreement are in the auxiliaries chapter; causatives with *faire* in chapter 23.

Contents:

1. Overview
2. The *être* passive
3. Which verbs have a passive
4. *Être* + participle: passive, state or compound tense
5. The agent: *par* and *de*
6. The *se* passive and the middle
7. Pronominal verbs and the voice of *se*
8. The impersonal passive
9. *Se faire*, *se voir*, *se laisser* + infinitive
10. *On*
11. Choosing the voice
12. The UD analysis
13. How Mova handles it
14. Sources

---

## 1. Overview

| construction | example | agent | register | UD (GSD) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| *être* passive | *La maison a été construite (par un architecte).* | optional *par/de* | all, mostly written | `aux:pass`, `nsubj:pass`, `obl:agent` |
| participle phrase | *une maison construite en 1900* | optional | written | `acl` |
| *se* passive (middle) | *Ce livre se vend bien. Ça ne se dit pas.* | none | all | `expl:pass` |
| impersonal passive | *Il a été décidé que …* | rare | formal | `expl:subj` + `aux:pass` |
| *se faire* + infinitive | *Il s'est fait voler sa voiture.* | optional *par* | all | `aux:caus` + reflexive |
| *on* + active | *On a volé ma voiture.* | — | all, speech above all | `nsubj` *on* |

Counts per 10 000 words (UD 2.18, 2026-11-06):

| per 10 000 words | GSD | Sequoia | ParisStories | Rhapsodie |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `aux:pass` (*être* passives) | 85 | 108 | 25 | 30 |
| `obl:agent` | 39 | 40 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| `expl:pass` (*se* passives) | 17 | 8 | 6 | 8 |
| subject *on* / *l'on* | 15 | — | 173 | 66 |

The written treebanks have three to four times as many *être* passives as the spoken ones, and almost all the agents; the spoken ones replace the passive by *on* (173 per 10 000 words in ParisStories).

## 2. The *être* passive

The passive is *être* + past participle; the participle agrees with the subject in gender and number. The tense is carried by *être*, and the compound tenses have *été*:

| active | passive |
| --- | --- |
| *Le collectionneur achète le tableau.* | *Le tableau est acheté par le collectionneur* (cf. fr-ud-dev_00640: *Il est acheté par le collectionneur*). |
| *On nomme Marie ministre.* | *Marie est nommée ministre* (cf. fr-ud-dev_01095: *Elle est nommée ministre de la Culture*). |
| *On n'a jamais réalisé les écuries.* | *Les écuries ne furent jamais réalisées* (fr-ud-train_03540). |
| *On va diviser le Soudan.* | *Le Soudan va être divisé en deux* (fr-ud-train_04657). |
| *On les a conduits là.* | *… où ils ont été conduits* (fr-ud-train_03972). |

All tenses and moods have a passive: *il sera construit, qu'il soit construit, il aurait été construit, être construit, ayant été construit*.

**Agentless by default.** In GSD 3 401 clauses have an `aux:pass`; 756 of them (22%) have an agent (`obl:agent`). In Sequoia 11% have one, in the spoken treebanks one or two in a hundred (2026-11-06). The passive is the construction that leaves out the agent.

**The verbs.** The commonest passive verbs of GSD are those of encyclopaedic description: *utiliser* 82, *nommer* 69, *connaître* 49 (*être connu pour*), *mettre* 47, *considérer* 45, *appeler* 39, *élire* 39, *créer* 38, *construire* 36, *publier* 35, *faire* 33, *donner* 30, *organiser* 27, *composer* 25, *classer* 25.

## 3. Which verbs have a passive

**Only a direct object becomes a subject.** The passive needs a transitive verb with a direct object: *On construit la maison → La maison est construite*. An indirect object cannot be promoted: English *He was given a book* and *She was told to leave* have no direct French counterpart (**Il a été donné un livre* in that sense, **Elle a été dite de partir*). French uses the active with *on* (*On lui a donné un livre*), the impersonal passive in formal style (*Il lui a été donné un livre*), or *se voir* + infinitive (*Il s'est vu remettre un prix*, §9).

**Exceptions.** *Obéir, désobéir, pardonner* take *à* but have a passive in classical and formal French: *Il veut être obéi. Vous êtes pardonné.* — survivals of an older transitive construction.

**Verbs without a passive.** Intransitive verbs; verbs with an object that is not a patient: *avoir* (**Une voiture est eue par Paul*), *posséder* in many uses, *comporter, coûter, peser, mesurer, valoir* with a measure (*Il pèse 80 kg*); light-verb objects (**Lieu a été eu*); reflexive verbs; many verbs of feeling in their stative sense take the passive only with *de* (§5).

## 4. *Être* + participle: passive, state or compound tense

The sequence *être* + past participle has three readings:

- an **action passive**: *La porte est ouverte par le gardien chaque matin* — an event, with or without an agent;
- a **state** (resultative passive): *La porte est ouverte* "The door is open" — the result of an event, with the participle close to an adjective;
- a **compound tense** of a verb that takes *être* (the verbs of motion and change of state, and all pronominal verbs): *Il est parti. Elle est née en 1900. Ils se sont rencontrés.*

The third is decided by the verb (*partir, venir, naître, mourir* take *être*; *construire* does not); the first two by the context. The auxiliaries chapter gives the list of *être* verbs; how children acquire the choice of auxiliary in French and Italian, and the role of the input, is studied in (lauzon-2025).

**In UD** the passive is `aux:pass` with `nsubj:pass` for the subject, and the participle has `Voice=Pass` (7 693 verbs in GSD); the compound tense is `aux:tense`; the stative reading is analysed by GSD as a passive or as a copula + adjective depending on whether the participle is felt as verbal. Neither the treebank nor a parser can always tell them apart from the words alone.

## 5. The agent: *par* and *de*

The agent is introduced by ***par*** (1 513 of the 1 554 `obl:agent` of GSD) or by ***de*** (34) (2026-11-06). *De* is used with verbs of feeling and of state, where the "agent" is not an actor: *aimé de tous, respecté de ses collègues, connu de tous, entouré de ses amis, couvert de neige, accompagné de son frère*. With some of these both are possible, *de* for the state and *par* for the event: *La maison est entourée d'arbres* / *La maison a été entourée par la police*.

**Agents in participle phrases.** Nearly half of the GSD agents are not in an `aux:pass` clause: 631 depend on a participle that modifies a noun (`acl`: *une ville fondée par les Romains*), 61 on a participle in an adverbial clause, 61 on a coordinated participle. The reduced passive of the noun phrase is the commonest place of the agent in written French.

## 6. The *se* passive and the middle

A transitive verb with the reflexive *se* and its patient as subject expresses a passive without an agent:

> Ce livre se vend bien. — Ça ne se fait pas. — Le vin blanc se boit frais. — Ça se dit pas. (spoken)

The construction is limited to the third person and usually to a generic or habitual event, with an adverb of manner or a modal sense ("can be, should be"): *Ce mot ne s'emploie plus. Le français se parle au Québec.* An agent is rarely expressed (**Ce livre se vend par les libraires* is odd). With a specific event it is a written, journalistic passive: *La réunion s'est tenue hier. Le match s'est joué à Paris.*

**In GSD** the *se* of these verbs is `expl:pass` (686, 17 per 10 000 words). The commonest verbs are *se situer* 47, *se faire* 32, *se tenir* 29, *se développer* 25, *s'étendre* 23, *se retrouver* 17, *se produire* 16, *se terminer* 16, *se distinguer* 15, *s'élever* 14, *se poursuivre* 14 (2026-11-06). The list shows how far the label reaches beyond the textbook middle: *se situer, se trouver, s'étendre* describe position, *se développer, se terminer, se poursuivre* are anticausatives (the event happens without an agent: *La crise se poursuit*). The boundary between `expl:pass` and `expl:pv` (§7) is the annotators' judgment.

## 7. Pronominal verbs and the voice of *se*

The reflexive clitic *se* (*me, te, nous, vous* in the other persons) has several values, and UD French separates them:

| value | example | the *se* | UD (GSD) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| reflexive, direct object | *Elle se lave.* | an argument | `obj` |
| reflexive, indirect object | *Elle se lave les mains. Ils se parlent.* | an argument | `iobj` |
| reciprocal | *Ils se sont vus. Elles se téléphonent.* | an argument | `obj` / `iobj` |
| inherent (lexical) | *Il se souvient. Il s'agit de … Elle s'évanouit. Il s'en va.* | part of the verb | `expl:pv` (1 017) |
| passive, middle, anticausative | *Ce livre se vend. La porte s'ouvre. La crise se poursuit.* | marks the voice | `expl:pass` (686) |

All pronominal verbs take *être* in the compound tenses (*Elle s'est lavée, Il s'est souvenu*), and the agreement of their participle follows the function of *se* — with *se* when it is a direct object, none when it is an indirect object (*Ils se sont parlé*), with the subject for inherent pronominals (*Elle s'est évanouie*). The 1990 rectifications made the participle of *laisser* + infinitive invariable, also in the pronominal use (*Elle s'est laissé mourir*; cslf-1990). The details are in the auxiliaries chapter.

**The anticausative.** Many verbs of change of state have a transitive use and an intransitive use with *se*: *Il ouvre la porte / La porte s'ouvre*, *On a cassé le verre / Le verre s'est cassé*, *Le vent sèche le linge / Le linge sèche* (without *se*: some verbs have both). The *se* form says the event happened by itself; it is not a passive with a hidden agent. GSD includes these in `expl:pass`.

## 8. The impersonal passive

A passive verb can have the empty *il* as subject, with the patient as a clause or a postverbal noun phrase: *Il a été décidé que …, Il fut alors décidé qu'à l'avenir …* (fr-ud-dev_00635), *Il est interdit de fumer, Il a été procédé à l'arrestation de …, Il lui a été remis un prix*. The construction is formal and administrative; it also makes a passive of intransitive verbs with a prepositional complement (*Il a été répondu à sa lettre*), which the personal passive cannot do. GSD has 27 passive clauses with an `expl:subj`, Sequoia 28 (2026-11-06).

## 9. *Se faire*, *se voir*, *se laisser* + infinitive

***Se faire*** + infinitive is a passive in which the subject is affected by an event caused by someone else, often to its detriment, and in speech also a passive of action: *Il s'est fait voler sa voiture* "He had his car stolen", *Elle s'est fait renverser par une voiture* "She got knocked over by a car", *Il s'est fait élire* "He got himself elected". *Faire* is `aux:caus` and the infinitive heads the clause (chapter 23, §8); in GSD about fifty causatives have a reflexive pronoun (2026-11-06), and *faire* is also `aux:pass` 21 times, in passives of the type *se faire élire*. The participle *fait* is invariable before an infinitive.

***Se voir*** + infinitive is the passive of the recipient that the *être* passive lacks: *Il s'est vu refuser l'entrée* "He was refused entry", *Elle s'est vu décerner un prix* "She was awarded a prize". ***Se laisser*** + infinitive adds consent or passivity: *Il s'est laissé convaincre*.

## 10. *On*

*On* is a subject pronoun of the third person singular with a human referent: indefinite "someone, people" (*On a volé ma voiture, On dit que …*), generic "one, you" (*On ne sait jamais*), and in speech the first person plural "we" (*On y va ?*). It is the commonest way of not naming the agent in speech: in ParisStories *on* is the subject 741 times (173 per 10 000 words), *nous* 4 times (chapter 21, §4). The verb is singular; an adjective or participle agrees with the sense when *on* is "we": *On est contents*.

*On* + active and the passive are not equivalent in information structure: the passive makes the patient the subject and topic, *on* keeps the patient as an object after the verb or as a clitic before it (*On l'a volée*). In written French *l'on* after *et, ou, où, si, que* is a careful-style variant (67 in GSD).

## 11. Choosing the voice

**Animacy.** In a sentence-recall study, speakers chose the passive more often when the patient was animate than when it was inanimate (a sentence about a bitten postman is more likely to come back as *Le facteur a été mordu par le chien* than one about a torn letter), while animacy did not change the order of the objects of ditransitive verbs or of coordinated nouns; the authors take this as evidence that animacy acts on the choice of grammatical function (who is the subject) rather than directly on the order of words (thuilier-2021).

**Acquisition.** French-speaking children understand short and long passives about equally well, and action passives (*Le chat est poursuivi par le chien*) better than passives of psychological verbs (*Le chat est aimé par le chien*): in a comprehension study the action passives were at ceiling by age 8 while the psychological ones were still slightly below (durrleman-2017).

**Register.** The *être* passive is a feature of written informative French (85 per 10 000 words in GSD, 108 in Sequoia against 25–30 in speech); speech uses *on*, the *se* passive, *se faire* and the active with a dislocated object (*La voiture, on me l'a volée*).

## 12. The UD analysis

| element | GSD relation |
| --- | --- |
| *être* of the passive | `aux:pass` |
| the subject of a passive | `nsubj:pass` (3 663), `csubj:pass` (26) |
| the agent | `obl:agent` (1 554) with `case` *par* or *de* |
| the passive participle | the head, `Voice=Pass` |
| *se* of the passive or middle | `expl:pass` (686) |
| *se* of an inherent pronominal verb | `expl:pv` (1 017) |
| *il* of the impersonal passive | `expl:subj` |
| *faire* of *se faire* + infinitive | `aux:caus` (or `aux:pass`, 21) |

The spoken treebanks use the same labels; ALTS has no `nsubj:pass` (chapter 20, §8).

## 13. How Mova handles it

**What is done.** `nsubj:pass`, `aux:pass` and `obl:agent` are in Mova's relation set and kept; `expl:pass` and `expl:pv` fold to `expl`, `aux:caus` to `aux`. The tag mapping gives the passive participle `VBN`, the same tag as the participle of a compound tense. Traces of the parser trained on the GSD training file (`en explain`, 12 epochs, beam 8, CPU, 2026-11-06):

| sentence | what Mova gives |
| --- | --- |
| *La maison a été construite en 1900.* | right: *maison* `nsubj:pass`, *a* `aux`, *été* `aux:pass`, *1900* `obl` |
| *Le livre a été écrit par Marie.* | right in shape: *livre* `nsubj:pass`, *été* `aux:pass`; *Marie* is `obl` with `case` *par*, not `obl:agent` |
| *Le chat est mangé par le chien.* | the same: *chat* `nsubj:pass`, *est* `aux:pass`, *chien* `obl` |
| *Ils ont été reçus par le ministre.* | the same: *Ils* `nsubj:pass`, *ministre* `obl` |
| *La porte est fermée.* | *porte* `nsubj:pass`, *est* `aux:pass`: read as a passive (the stative reading is not distinguished) |
| *Ce livre se lit facilement.* | right in the folded labels: *livre* `nsubj:pass`, *se* `expl` |
| *Ce livre se vend bien.* | right in the folded labels: *livre* `nsubj:pass`, *se* `expl` |
| *On a volé ma voiture.* | right: *On* `nsubj`, *voiture* `obj` |
| *Elle se fait aider par sa sœur.* | half right: *aider* the root with *fait* `aux` (the GSD causative shape), but *se* is `obj` and *sœur* `obl` |
| *Il s'est fait voler sa voiture.* | wrong: *s'est* is one token and the root; *fait* is an `aux:pass` of *voler* |
| *Il a été décidé de partir.* | half right: *été* `aux:pass`, *partir* `xcomp`, but *Il* is `nsubj:pass` (GSD: `expl:subj`) |
| *Il est venu et il est reparti.* | wrong voice: *Il* `nsubj:pass`, *est* `aux:pass` — the compound tense of *venir* is read as a passive |

The parser learns the passive shape well, but it never chose `obl:agent` in these sentences although the label is in its set and in the training data; and it confuses the *être* of a compound tense with the passive *être*, because the tagger gives both participles `VBN` and the parser has no list of *être* verbs.

**What is not done.**

- **Voice in the frames.** The English frames reader maps a passive to the active roles (the subject of a passive is the patient, the *by*-phrase the agent). For French, with `obl:agent` not predicted and `expl:pass` folded to `expl`, a *se* passive is not distinguished from a reflexive or an inherent pronominal: in *Ce livre se vend bien* nothing says that the book is sold rather than selling.
- **Auxiliary selection.** Mova has no list of the verbs that take *être*, so *Il est venu* and *Il est vu* cannot be told apart by rule.
- **On.** *On* is an ordinary third person subject for the parser; nothing resolves it to "someone", "people" or "we".
- **Se faire, se voir** + infinitive are not read as passives.

## 14. Sources

- Conseil supérieur de la langue française, *Les rectifications de l'orthographe* (1990), on *laisser* + infinitive: `cslf-1990`.
- Thuilier, Grant, Crabbé & Abeillé, *Word order in French: the role of animacy* (Glossa, 2021): `thuilier-2021`.
- Durrleman, Delage, Prévost & Tuller, *The comprehension of passives in Autism Spectrum Disorder* (Glossa, 2017): `durrleman-2017`.
- Lauzon, Folli, Sevdali & Gerard, *Acquisition of auxiliary selection in French and Italian and the role of input* (Glossa, 2025): `lauzon-2025`.
- UD French GSD, Sequoia, ParisStories, Rhapsodie, UD 2.18; sentences cited by `sent_id`; counts made with `awk` over the CoNLL-U files, 2026-11-06.
- Mova: [`en/src/main.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/) (`xpos_of`, `explain`), [`en/src/gram.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/), [`prag/src/frames.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/prag/).
- The full list is in [Sources](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/sources/).
- [← previous 27. Negation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/fr/27-negation/)
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