§ 292. It has often, been claimed that passive structures can be regarded as transforms of certain active struc­tures 1.

It would, however, be erroneous to think that these con­structions are always mutually convertible, provided the verb is objective.

a) To begin with, some verbal grammemes (e. g. those represented by will be singing, has been singing, had been singing, will have been singing, to be singing, to have been singing) have no passive opposites.

b) Repin painted this famous picture and this famous picture was painted by Repin are not absolutely identical in meaning. In the passive construction the main stress falls upon the word naming the doer of the action. It serves to answer the question Who(m) was the picture painted by?, while the active construction answers some question like What did Repin do?

c) Two-member passive constructions which constitute the bulk of passive, constructions in Modern English speech cannot be made active since they contain no word which might become the subject of a parallel active construction².

d) A passive construction with the impersonal subject cannot be made active, e. g. It is said, believed, hoped, etc.

e) An active construction cannot be made passive if it contains a reflexive pronoun or an infinitive as an object.

E. g. She admired herself in the mirror, but not *herself was admired... She promised to come. *To come was promised is impossible.

f) As already mentioned (§ 205) some objective verbs have no passive opposites.

g) Active and passive constructions differ stylistically: the active is markedly more colloquial, the passive being largely confined to literary English, scientific prose.

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¹ See, for instance, N. Chomsky. Syntactical Structures. Russian translation in «Новое в лингвистике», вып. II, М., 1962, р. 448—450. See also К. Pike, op. cit., p. 26 "...a passive may be derived from an active... John was hit by Bill would be a transform sentence of the under­lying sentence Bill hit John".

Subjunctive Mood Grammemes in Speech

§ 293. As we know, there is not a single subjunctive mood grammeme which has no homonyms in the indicative or in the imperative mood (or both). The discrimination of homo­nymous grammemes rests on the combinations they form and on their occurrence in certain types of sentences and clauses.

§ 294. As already mentioned (§ 240), subjunctive mood grammemes represented by live, be invited, be coming (we may call them 'former present' subjunctive, or 'subjunctive I' ¹) are rapidly falling into disuse, being replaced by the corresponding should grammemes (should live, should be invited, should be coming). Both types of grammemes present an action as problematic, though not actually contrary to reality.

Subjunctive I grammemes are decidedly uncolloquial (save in American English), being generally confined to official, elevated style. They are felt to impart official fla­vour, solemnity, bombastic tinge. The should grammemes are stylistically neutral and are therefore employed in dif­ferent stylistic varieties of speech.

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¹ The term was introduced by A. 1. Smirnitsky to denote a separate mood. See op. cit., p. 346—350.