Verb’s Voice

Verbs: Overview

Verb is one of the eight parts of speech in English. It can be one word or more than one word that comes after the subject. Verbs are also one of the members of the synthetic categories. They form an open class category which means that the verb is changeable according to its relationship with other parts of speech. These words denote something happening, occurring, moving, existing or doing anything. Some of the most commonly used verbs are as follows:

VERBS                                  SIMPLE PAST                    PAST PARTICIPLE 

•       To go                                         Went                                       Gone

•       To take                                      Took                                       Taken

•       To know                                    Knew                                      Known 

•       To see                                         Saw                                         Seen

•       To come                                    Came                                      Come

•       To do                                           Did                                         Done

•       To be                                          Were                                      Been

Verbs are a constant in both the forms of active and passive voices. Active and Passive voice plays an important role in deriving the meaning of a sentence. Verbs change their form when converted from active voice to passive voice and vice versa. 

Types of Verbs

The World of verbs has a versatile range of words with different functions.

Following are some types of verbs:

• Finite

A finite verb is a verb that modifies or modulates on the basis of a change in the tense, person or object. It is the main verb of a sentence or a clause.

It has further three classifications:

1. Principal Verb (also called Lexical or Main Verb): A principal verb conveys an action. It functions as the main verb of the sentence or a clause.
2. Linking Verb (also called Copular Verb): A linking verb joins the subject of any sentence to a complement or another object or phrase to denote and give information. 
3. Auxiliary Verb (also known as Helping Verb): Auxiliary verbs help the main verb express mood, feeling or opinion.

• Non-Finite Verbs

The verb that is not affected by the person or number of the subject and the tense of a sentence is called a non finite verb. It acts as noun, adjective and adverb.

It has the following types:

1. Infinitive Verb: It is formulated by adding the word “ to” to the verb base form.
2. Gerund Verb: Any phrase or word carrying “ing” in this structure.
3. Participle: A Participle is a word that is formed from a verb and acts as a verb, an adjective and an adverb.

There are three types of Participle as follows :

• Present Participle: The base form of the verb + ing 
• Past Participle: 3rd form of the verb
• Perfect Participle: Having + 3rd form of the verb

What are Active Voice and Passive Voice?

Active Passive

Active voice emphasises subject performing and action. In active voice, the sentence has a subject that acts as its verb. The order of active voice is subject + verb + object.

Following are some of the key features of the usage of Active Voice :

• Gives a sentence direct, string and clear tone
• The subject is the centre of attention
• Solely responsible affairs can use an active voice

Passive Voice

In passive voice what is emphasised is either the action or the object. In passive voice, it means that a subject is a recipient of a verb action. The order passive voice is subject (derived from the object) + verb + object(subject in active voice). Following are some reasons to use the passive voice instead of the active voice :

• We want to focus on the result of an action
• The agent is obviously not repetitive or relevant
• We want to avoid naming the agent

Passive voice is commonly used for academic purposes such as experiments, introducing new concepts and writing about processes.

Sometimes a sentence or a clause has multiple objects which can be referred to as direct and indirect objects.

For example, My mom gave a lunchbox to my sisters.  

Explanation: The voice is active as the subject (MOM) performs the action of the verb (GAVE). With LUNCHBOX being the direct object and TO MY SISTERS being the indirect object. 

When we try to convert the same sentence to passive voice, we can use both direct and indirect objects as subjects. The passive sentences would sound something like this :

Lunchboxes were given to my sisters by my mom.

Or, My sisters were given lunchboxes by my mom. 

Identification of Active Voice or Passive Voice

It is really easy to identify if a verb is in active or passive voice. If the subject is performing the action then the verb is in active voice. If the subject (which becomes an agent) is the recipient of the actions, then the verb is definitely in passive voice. 

Active and Passive voices clearly have different tone and sometimes change the whole perspective of how a sentence is constructed.

Conclusion

Active and Passive voices play an integral role in communication. One has to learn the specific rules and formats to convert active voices into passive voices and vice versa. Verbs play an important role in learning active and passive voices. Hence, proper understanding and execution need to be done to complete the sentence in different voices.