Active Voice & Passive Voice & Passive
SE & Resultant State
updated Feb 24, 2003
The passive voice is extremely common in written
English. It is sometimes a difficult concept to understand
for English speakers because it is to some extent invisible.
We confuse the "resultant state" and the "passive
voice." To help clarify the difference, let's take a
closer look at what happens when we use verbs in their adjectival
form, known as "past participles."
Participles as Adjectives
[you will want to take a look at
the formation of past participles]
To understand this concept, it is helpful to limit ourselves to
the adjective/past participles "open" and "opened".
The reason is that other adjectives in English do not clarify the
difference between the passive voice and resultant state structure.
"The door is open" and "The door is opened"
are very different in their meaning.
If I say the door is or was opened, it is possible
to add an "agent" to it with the preposition "by".
The door was opened by John. When we say this, we
should see in our mind's eye an image of the process of opening
the door and somebody doing it.
With the structure "The door is open." We don't "see"
the opening of the door, but rather we see a door sitting in the
state of being open. The important distinction between them
is:
Use SER for the passive voice, and ESTAR for
the resultant state.
Don't forget that Spanish speakers generally avoid the
use of the passive voice. This distaste for the passive voice
is taught in English composition classes and by the grammar check
in Microsoft Word. In cases where the agent is unimportant,
use the passive SE structure (SE + Active Verb.) See the Ser
vs Estar page and the Uninflected
Verbs page.
The 3 Voices
There are three principle verbal structures in both Spanish and
English:
Active voice
Passive voice
Resultant state
The Spanish language adds a fourth that has very few corresponding
examples in English. It is called the "Se pasiva"
or the "Se impersonal".
Let's see some examples:
You eat the soup like a meal (active voice)
The soup is eaten like a meal (passive voice)
The soup eats like a meal. (closest thing to the Spanish Passive
SE that I could think of)
The soup is eaten. (Resultant state--there is no more soup.
It's all gone.)
I drive my car like a race car. (active voice--probably not used
if the idea is that the car behaves like a race car. The active
voice refers to my driving habits)
My car is driven like a race car. (Passive voice--basically
the same as above, but the stress is taken from me and put on the
car)
My car drives like a race car. (similar to passive SE--we all know
cars don't drive! The idea is that we are emphasizing the
quality of my car, not my driving. All the stress is on the
verb.)
My car is driven (resultant state--wouldn't make sense because we
don't refer to the state of having been driven.)
Observe the stylistic and rhetorical function of each.
In some cases one or more of the possible voices would not be
used because it does not make sense.
Active voice emphasizes the subject (the one who
does the action)
El profesor abre la puerta.
Passive voice emphasizes the object
La puerta es abierta (por el profesor.)
by turning it into a "pseudosubject" (the recipient
or victim of the action becomes the subject of the verb).
It includes the "boring" verb SER to get the idea across.
Notice that the subject of the original active voice is either removed,
or it becomes an agent of the action by adding the preposition "by"
(por). [The students did the homework --> The homework
was done (by the students).]
Passive SE emphasizes the verb.
Se abre la puerta.
Like the passive voice, the true subject (doer of the action) becomes
an invisible agent that must be unimportant enough to be omitted.
Although an agent is implied, it is incorrect to include the agent
with a passive SE structure. It is used in order to avoid
the dull verb "SER", and to avoid the passive voice itself.
Keep in mind that there is no real equivalent to this structure
in English. It is basically an active voice structure that
carries the idea of a passive voice structure. The placement
of the subject AFTER the verb is the syntactic "flag"
that the SE used is not a reflexive pronoun, but rather a passive/impersonal
SE. If the agent is important, then you must use the true
passive voice to accomplish this.
The resultant state emphasizes the adjective, or state.
La puerta está abierta.
The door is open. The resultant state with
ESTAR cannot include the agent. The only thing
of interest is the state the object of the action is in.
You cannot really avoid using the resultant state structure without
rewriting the sentence drastically, nor is it possible to
add the agent to the sentence. This would convert
it back to passive voice with SER.
In some contexts one or the other--passive or resultant state--do
not really make sense.
Examples:
Active Voice: They read lots of books (Los estudiantes
leen muchos libros)
Passive Voice: Many books are read by the students.
(Muchos libros son leídos por los estudiantes.) Using
the passive voice places the emphasis on the books. The students
are not necessary in the sentence, but can be added if they are
important. If not, the sentence is impersonal in its intent.
Passive SE: The books read (themselves). (Se
leen los libros) Sounds odd in English, in Spanish it's fine,
except we don't know who does it (think of the "soup that eats
like a meal"). You wouldn't use this if you had a desire to
put importance on the students. Since Spanish is very "verb-centered",
this structure is preferred when possible.
Resultant state. The books are read. (completed,
no longer being read). (Los libros ya están leídos.)
Notice that the students are completely missing here.
El contrato es firmado --> Se firma el contrato. (See the section
on SER/ESTAR with Adjectives
above) Notice that the direct object of the active voice sentence
becomes the subject of the passive voice, the original subect disappears,
or becomes an agent with "by/por". Then, in the passive
se structure, that subject must appear AFTER the verb, and the agent
isn't indicated:
Active voice: Ellos firman el contrato
Passive voice: El contrato es firmado (por ellos--optional)
Passive se: Se firma el contrato. (agent must be omitted)
Resultant State: El contrato está firmado. (adding
the agent "por ellos" is impossible. The idea is
that the contract has been signed and that it is sitting there with
a signature on it.)
You can continue to page two of this
tutorial, which contains more examples, and links to other pages
that are useful for understanding this concept.
