I have two choices: this sentance is in active voice, or in the passive voice.Here is this sentance:Everybody looked at the house, which had been abandoned sevelar years ago.
I want to know if it is active or passive voice.
2006-08-23 16:35:35 · 7 answers · asked by murzilka 1 in Education & Reference ➔ Home Schooling
In active voice, the subject is performing the action. For the explanation, I'm cutting the second half of the sentence which is only there to confuse you. (Because the dependent clause, which had been abandoned is passive, but it is not the subject.)
Everyone looked at the house.
Subject is EVERYONE
what were they doing?
They were looking.
They were performing an action.
Passive sentences have the subject receiving the action.
Let's make the house the subject.
The house was looked at by people.
What is the subject?
House
what did it do?
It did nothing. It was "looked at by". It did not perform action. It received action.
The key that will usually tell you if a sentence is in passive voice is was...by
The test was given by the teacher
The car was driven by the driver.
The dog was walked by the lunatic.
Now...what confuses people is that "WAS" is an auxiliary verb.
Everytime you see WAS it does NOT mean passive voice.
WAS is related to tense.
Ok...I can make it more clear if I take the above sentences and make them active.
Passive..................................................... Active
The test was given by the teacher. Teacher gave the test.
The car was driven by the driver. The driver drove the car.
The dog was walked by the lunatic. The lunatic walked the dog.
Let's put the sentences into past progressive tense.
ACTIVE VOICE_Past Progressive tense
The teacher was giving the test.
The driver was driving the car.
The lunatic was walking the dog.
The subjects are still performing the action. If you want to flip it back to being passive it would look like this:
Passive VOICE_Past Progressive tense
The test was being given by the teacher.
The car was being driven by the driver.
The dog was being walked by the lunatic.
Are you confused yet?
2006-08-23 20:09:16 · answer #1 · answered by maî 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope. Try - Everyone looked at the house, which the owners abandoned several years ago.
Any object that "has had" something happen to it is passive voice.
Trust me, I'm right on this. Others are confusing passive with past tense.
2006-08-23 16:43:06 · answer #2 · answered by Nitris 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Passive. Looked. How about Everyone was looking at the house which had been abandoned several years ago
2006-08-23 16:42:02 · answer #3 · answered by memorris900 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Active voice. Trust me. The second clause (which had been abandoned. . .) is not a complete sentence but is called a dependent clause. The only part of the sentence you need to be concerned with is the first part.
2006-08-23 18:31:45 · answer #4 · answered by freedomnow1950 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would say an active voice because it is describing something active. whereas the statement everybody saw the abandoned house. would be passive voice because its character is not active in it
2006-08-23 16:44:54 · answer #5 · answered by Jen B 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The first clause is active; the second is passive.
2006-08-23 16:43:22 · answer #6 · answered by bibliophile31 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
yes i think it is active voice. if it were passive, it would say "Everybody was looking at the house..."
2006-08-23 16:42:51 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋