VOICE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE
[Sidenote: _Meaning of active voice._]
208. As has been seen, transitive verbs are the only kind that can
express action so as to go over to an object. This implies three
things,--the agent, or person or thing acting; the verb representing
the action; the person or object receiving the act.
In the sentence,
"We reached the village of Sorgues by dusk, and accepted the invitation of an old dame to lodge at her inn,"
these three things are found:
the actor, or agent, is expressed by _we_;
the action is asserted by _reached_ and _accepted_; the things acted upon are _village_ and _invitation_.
Here the subject is represented as doing something. The same word is the subject and the agent. This use of a transitive verb is called the active voice.
[Sidenote: _Definition._]
209. The active voice is that form of a verb which represents the
subject as acting; or
The active voice is that form of a transitive verb which makes the
_subject_ and the _agent_ the same word.
[Sidenote: _A question._]
210. Intransitive verbs are _always active voice_. Let the student
explain why.
[Sidenote: _Meaning of passive voice._]
211. In the assertion of an action, it would be natural to suppose,
that, instead of always representing the subject as acting upon some
person or thing, it must often happen that the subject is spoken of as
_acted upon_; and the person or thing acting may or may not be
expressed in the sentence: for example,--
All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are
speedily punished. They are punished by fear.--EMERSON.
Here the subject _infractions_ does nothing: it represents the object
toward which the action of _are punished_ is directed, yet it is the
subject of the same verb. In the first sentence the agent is not
expressed; in the second, _fear_ is the agent of the same action.
So that in this case, instead of having the agent and subject the same
word, we have the _object_ and _subject_ the same word, and the agent may be omitted from the statement of the action.
_Passive_ is from the Latin word _patior_, meaning _to endure_ or
_suffer_; but in ordinary grammatical use _passive_ means _receiving an action_.
[Sidenote: _Definition._]
212. The passive voice is that form of the verb which represents the
subject as being acted upon; or--
The passive voice is that form of the verb which represents the
_subject_ and the _object_ by the same word.
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