Mastering Passive Voice and Causative Structures

Passive Voice

PASSIVE: Subject + BE + Past Participle + (BY + Complement Agent)

• Present Simple: Susan writes books (Books are written by her)
• Present Continuous: Susan is writing books (Books are being written by her)
• Present Perfect: Susan has written books (Books have been written by her)
• Past Simple: Susan ate sweets (Sweets were eaten by her)
• Past Continuous: Susan was writing books (Books were being written by her)
• Past Perfect: Susan had written books (Books had been written by her)
• Future Simple: Susan will write books (Books will be written by her)
• Future Perfect: Susan will have written books (Books will have been written by her)

Object Pronouns:

I (ME) YOU (YOU) HE (HIM) SHE (HER) IT (IT) WE (US) THEY (THEM)

Impersonal and Personal Passive Structures

Impersonal structure: It + be (conjugated in the same tense as the first verb) + Past Participle + that … (copy the second tense)

Personal structure: Subject of the second sentence + be (conjugated in the same tense as the first verb) + Past Participle + to infinitive (of the second verb)

Causative Structure: Have Something Done

HAVE SOMETHING DONE

• Present Simple: She cleans her house (She has her house cleaned)
• Present Continuous: She is cleaning her house (She is having her house cleaned)
• Past Simple: She cleaned her house (She had her house cleaned)
• Past Continuous: She was cleaning her house (She was having her house cleaned)
• Future Simple: She will clean her house (She will have her house cleaned)
• Future Continuous: She will be cleaning her house (She will be having her house cleaned)
• Present Perfect: She has cleaned her house (She has had her house cleaned)
• Present Perfect Continuous: She has been cleaning her house (She has been having her house cleaned)
• Past Perfect: She had cleaned her house (She had had her house cleaned)
• Past Perfect Continuous: She had been cleaning her house (She had been having her house cleaned)
• Infinitive: She must clean her house (She must have her house cleaned)
• Gerund: She likes cleaning her house (She likes having her house cleaned)

Examples

• The mechanic repairs my car (I have my car repaired)
• Yesterday the hairdresser cut my hair (Yesterday I had my hair cut)
• You should fix the TV (You should have the TV fixed)
• The plumber has fixed Tom's pipes (Tom has had his pipes fixed)
• The engineer will install windows (You will have windows installed)
• Someone must have thrown our rubbish (We must have had our rubbish thrown)