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Mike has a car. - *A car is had by Mike.weighs 200 pounds. - *200 pounds was weighed by Roger.

Likewise, there are passive sentences in English that have no Active Voice variant, e.g.:

Mehdi was born in Tehran. - *Someone bore Mehdi in Tehran.is rumored that he will get the job. - *Someone rumors that he will get the job.

With certain verbs and in certain situations either the Active or the Passive Voice must be used exclusively [5; 224-225]. 1.2 The General Characteristic of the Passive Voice in English The English passive is a problem for non-English speakers, mainly with regard to usage. Even though students can easily learn to form the passive, they have problems learning when to use it. There are several reasons for this. A few languages don’t even have a passive voice. Most languages, however, have a passive that is more limited than the English one. Such languages will use word order, impersonal constructions, or other devices to express the equivalent of an English passive sentence. Only a few languages have a more generalized passive than English. For most English learners the passive will occur more frequently in English than in their native language and there will be a wider variety of passive sentence types in English than in their own language [5; 221]. .2.1 The formation of the Passive Voice

The Passive Voice is formed by means of the auxiliary verb to be in the required form and Participle II of the notional verb.

The Present, Past and Future Indefinite Passive are formed by means of Present, Past and Future Indefinite of the auxiliary verb to be and Participle II of the notional verb. am

is+Ved/V3

are

.g. We are invited. (Present Indefinite Passive)

was

+ Ved/V3

were

.g. You were invited. (Past Indefinite Passive)

shall

+ be Ved/V3

will

.g. She will be invited. (Future Indefinite Passive)Present, Past and Future Perfect Passive are formed by means of the Present, Past and Future Perfect of the auxiliary verb to be and Participle II of the notional verb. have

+ been Ved/V3

has

.g. I have been invited. (Present Perfect Passive)

had been Ved/V3

.g. They had been invited. (Past Perfect Passive)

shall

+ have been Ved/V3

will

.g. He will have been invited. (Future Perfect Passive)Present Continuous and the Past Continuous Passive are formed by means of the Present Continuous and the Past Continuous of the auxiliary verb to be and Participle II of the notional verb. am

is+ being Ved/V3

are e.g. We are being invited. (Present Continuous Passive)

was

+ being Ved/V3

were

.g. You were being invited. (Past Continuous Passive) [3; 111-112].

The Future Continuous, the Present Perfect Continuous, the Past Perfect Continuous and the Future Perfect Continuous don’t have the appropriate forms in the Passive Voice [4; 226].uses of tenses in the Active and in the Passive Voice are the same [3; 113].

1.2.2 Different kinds of passives

There are 4 formally distinct kinds of passive sentences in English:

ü Simple passives with “to be”:.g., Mary was hit by John.are grown in that valley.

ü Simple passives with “to get”:.g., Barry got invited to the party.got hurt in the accident.

ü Complex passives with “to be”:.g., It is rumored that he will get the job.is thought to be intelligent.he will get the job has been decided.

ü Complex passives with “to have”:.g., Hal had his car stolen last weekend.had her purse snatched while shopping downtown [5; 226]. 1.2.3 The interaction of the passive voice with modals and perfect tenses

Modal auxiliaries frequently co-occur with the passive voice in at least 3 distinct uses:

1) Possibility/ability - Can and could are used with the passive to express possibility or ability in the present and past, respectively.

e.g., The star can/could be seen from the balcony.

2) Logical (predictive/deductive) use - The logical modals can be used with the passive voice to express present deductions or future predictions; when these deductions or predictions refer to past time, “to have” must also be used.

e.g., Mr. John must/should/might/… have been/be elected mayor.

) Making suggestions - In order to express a suggestion the conditional modals are used; also, “to have” is used to express hindsight, i.e., suggestions about things that were unfulfilled in the past.

e.g., More hospitals could/should be built. (= could be fulfilled in the future)hospitals could/should have been built. (= was not fulfilled in the past)

Studies are needed to determine which modals in which of their specific usages co-occur most often with the passive as opposed to the active voice. Also, it is important to note that the meaning of the modals in some so-called active-passive counterparts do not seem truly equivalent, e.g.:

People say that Dan is a fool. = It is said that Dan is a fool.may say that Dan is a fool. ≠ It may be said that Dan is a fool [5; 227-228]. 1.2.4 The Usage of the Passive Voice

Pioneering studies by Huddleston (1971), Shintani (1979), and others provide us with some guidelines concerning when to use the passive. Raw frequency data,

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