Active voice

Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages. A verb in such languages is usually in the active voice when the subject of the verb performs the action named.

This article is about a grammatical voice. For the Seattle skyscraper, see Active Voice Building. For active and passive in English, see English passive voice.

Active voice is used in a clause whose subject expresses the main verb's agent. That is, the subject does the verb's designated action.[1] A clause whose agent is marked as grammatical subject is called an active clause. In contrast, a clause in which the subject has the role of patient or theme is named a passive clause, and its verb is expressed in passive voice. Many languages have both an active and a passive voice and this allows for greater flexibility in sentence construction, as either the semantic agent or patient may take the subject syntactic role.[2]

In a clause including an impersonal verb, the verb is active in form, but no agent is specified.

Examples

In the following examples, the active and passive voice are illustrated with pairs of sentences using the same transitive verb.

Language Active voice Passive voice
Afrikaans Die hond het die posbode gebyt. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Die posbode is deur die hond gebyt. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
English The dog bit the postal carrier. The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.
Dutch De hond beet de postbezorger. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) De postbezorger werd gebeten door de hond. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Arabic عَضّ الكلبُ ساعي البريد. (The dog bit the postal carrier.)
'ad alkalbu sa'eya albareed		 عُضّ ساعي البريد بواسطة الكلب. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
'oud sa'eya albareed biwasitat alkalb
Finnish Koira puri postimiestä. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Postimiestä puri koira. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
French Le chien a mordu le facteur. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Le facteur a été mordu par le chien. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
German Der Hund biss den Postboten. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Der Postbote wurde vom Hund gebissen. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Italian Il cane ha morso il postino. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Il postino è stato morso dal cane. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Latin Canis epistulārium momordit. (The dog bit the postman.) Epistulārius a cane morsum erat. (The postman was bitten by the dog.)
Korean 개가 우편집배원을 물었다. (A dog bit the postal carrier.)
gaega upyeonjibbaewon-eul mul-eossda		 우편집배원은 개에게 물렸다. (The postal carrier was bitten by a dog.)
upyeonjibbaewon-eun gaeege mullyeossda
Japanese 犬がかんだ。(A dog bit [someone].)
Inu-ga kanda		 犬にかまれた。(By a dog [someone] was bitten.)
Inu-ni kamareta
Chinese 狗咬了邮递员。(The dog bit the postal carrier.)
Gǒu yǎole yóudìyuán		 邮递员被狗咬了。(The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Yóudìyuán bèi gǒu yǎole
Polish Pies ugryzł listonosza. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Listonosz został ugryziony przez psa. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Spanish El perro mordió al cartero. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) El cartero fue mordido por el perro. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Swahili Mbwa aliuma tarishi. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Tarishi aliumwa na mbwa. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Swedish Hunden bet brevbäraren. (The dog bit the postal carrier.) Brevbäraren blev biten av hunden. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
Telugu కుక్క పోస్టల్ క్యారియర్ని కరిచింది. (The dog bit the postal carrier.)
'kukka postal carrierni karichindi		 పోస్టల్ క్యారియర్ కుక్క చేత కరవబడింది. (The postal carrier was bitten by the dog.)
postal carrier kukka cheta karavabadindi

See also

References
  1. O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller (eds.) (2001). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction Fourth edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-24738-9
  2. Saeed, John (1997). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-20035-5
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