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Chapter One The General Introduction
1.1 The Various Definitions of the Passive
    The passive is such a popular and representative linguistic phenomenon that many linguists have chosen it to have a academic study. As for this, its pursuers have put forward miscellaneous explanations in order to give it a relatively comprehensive and systematic analysis, which leads to various definitions. Generally speaking, all its definitions can be divided into three parts: the structural category, the meaning category and the synthetic category which includes both of the former categories. Next, the writer will try to describe them one by one according to the standards given above and list out some examples so as to give a full interpretation.
English is a language which mainly focuses on the study of the structure within itself, which means that it usually takes different forms to represent its different linguistic phenomena and the passive is not an exception. Its commonest existing form is "be+past participle", and sometimes, "be" will be transformed into other link verbs that have the same function as "be". The following definitions are all the correspondent examples: Leech et a1(1975: 257) state that the term "passive" is used to describe: the type of verb phrase which contains the construction be+past participle; the type of clause in which a passive verb phrase occurs. After this, Sylvianne Granger(1983:1) advances its definition from a bit more profound level: [passive] refers to be+past participle structures which stand in alteration with a semantically eQuivalent active structure.
Although this method seems to be legible and easy to follow and identify, especially for the junior learners, it has many shortcomings which will be revealed with the process of studying. The past participle is a troubled matter, for according to Quirk et a1(1985: 167-170), it includes three parts listed below: central passives, semi-passives and pseudo-passives. Central passives mention the verbs that have its definite counterparts; semi-passives not only have the active corresponding parts but also perform as adjectives, such as interested, amused, and discouraged etc; pseudo-passives only have the appearance of V ed form, but actually they are fixed phrases or expressions which can't be separated.
    The meaning category means that there are no passive marks in the sentences and we can comprehend its virtual signification through its intrinsic analysis. The definitions brought forward in this way can be seen below: J.C. Nesfield(1980: 55): Voice may be defined as that form of a transitive verb which shows whether the agent does something to something else, or suffers something from something else. When taking semantics into consideration, the whole study will neglect the superficial form and make the inherent elements as the most important. This approach is the most appropriate for those sentences that use the active forms to replace the passive forms; however, as a matter of fact their real meanings are passive. The following are some examples:
A. We have many issues to deal with.
B. There is nothing to do.
    In the first sentence, we is the first argument, which together with the infinitive deal with forms the semantic VP phrase, while many issues is the a本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。