3. Passive voice

3.1 Voice as a grammatical category

Languages differ greatly in their idiosyncrasies, i.e. in the forms which they have adopted, in the peculiarities of their usages in the combinative power of words and idiomatic forms of grammar peculiar to that language and not generally found in other languages.

From this point of view the category of voice presents a special linguistic interest. Passive constructions play an important part in the English verb-system. Modern English, especially in its later periods, has developed the use of passive formations to a very great extent.

As a grammatical category voice is the form of the verb which shows the relation between the action and its subject indicating whether the action is performed by the subject or passes on to it. Accordingly there are two voices in English: the active and the passive. The active voice shows that the action is performed by its subject, that the subject is the doer of the action. The passive voice shows that the subject is acted upon, that it is the recipient of the action, e.g.:

I wrote a letter. A letter was written by me.

The choice of the passive construction is often due to the fact that the agent is unknown or the speaker prefers not to speak of him.

Sometimes the agent is dropped altogether when it is unknown or unimportant. Only the passive makes this economy possible.

The passive voice is expressed by analytic combinations of the auxiliary verb be with the past participle of the notional verb.

3.2 The passive voice expressed by get + Past participle

The passive, formed with get as auxiliary and the past participle, seems to be increasing in frequency, though grammarians are at present not agreed as to its status.

The verb get can function in a manner very similar with be, e.g.:

My dress got caught on a nail.	Моя сукня зачепилася за цвях.
He got struck by a stone.	В нього влучили каменем.

To get seems closer to the true passive auxiliary to be in patterns like the following:

She got blamed for everything.	Її звинувачували у всьому.
She gets teased by the other children.	Її дражнять інші діти.
He gets punished regularly.	Його регулярно карають.

But with all the similarity of the two verbs used in such patterns get is unlike be in the primary paradigm. We can say, for instance, He gets punished regularly, but we shall hardly attest Gets he punished regularly?

It should be noted that to get is often used in preference to the verb to be because the true passive would not be clearly distinguishable from combinations of the full predicator be and participial adjective complements.

Compare to be married and to get married. As it is known, to be married can have two meanings: «одружитися» and «бути одруженим» while to get married is unambiguous: it can mean only “to arrive at the married state”.

The group to become + past participle expresses primarily state, e. g.:

The umbrella is not a possession lightly to be lost. Yet lost it becomes although it should not.	Парасолька — це не така річ, яку легко загубити. Проте вона губиться, хоча і не повинна.
I have become very sunburnt.	Я дуже засмаг.