20231018 被動語態 The Passive Voice (62)

被動語態
The Passive Voice
In this lesson, we talk about passive voice. The structure is " be + past participle". For example, in the video, we hear "Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams were all named first." The speaker combined "were" with the past participle "named" to form the passive voice because it was somebody else who gave them the job to write the Declaration and they didn't give the job to themselves. In this sentence, "named" is a past participle and it has nothing to do with the past tense. Let's look at another example, "The reference was cut out before the Declaration was approved and sent to the printer." In this sentence, "was cut out" and "was approved and sent" are in passive voice because it was people that cut the reference out, approved the Declaration, and send the Declaration to the printer. Here, "cut", "approved" and "sent" are also past participles and have nothing to do with the past tense. It's been emphasized that the past participle in the passive voice has nothing to do with the past tense. Though the two may look the same, they are not. Take the verb "approve" for example, the past tense and the past participle are both "approved". In a passive sentence, we tell the time of the action by the "be" verb. In other words, we know that "the Declaration was approved" happened in the past because of "was" but not "approved".

這堂課和大家介紹被動語態，句型為 be V+ Vpp（be動詞 + 過去分詞）。

如本課所提 Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams were all named first.（羅伯特‧李維頓、羅傑‧謝爾曼、 班傑明‧富蘭克林、還有約翰‧亞當斯都是既定人選。）講者用 were 及過去分詞 named 形成被動語態，因為是別人要他們寫獨立宣言，不是他們指派自己這份工作。這句 named 是過去分詞，跟過去式沒有關係。

另外一個被動語態的例句為 The reference was cut out before the Declaration was approved and sent to the printer.（在獨立宣言通過並送去排印前，這段就被刪除了。）此句 was cut out 以及 was approved and sent 是被動語態，因為是「有人」把文章部分刪掉、通過文章並拿去排印。

這裡的 cut、approved 以及 sent 一樣跟過去式沒有關係，而是過去分詞。 這裡一再強調的是被動句的過去分詞與過去時態沒有關係，雖然許多動詞的過去分詞與過去式同形（如 approve 的過去分詞及過去式都是 approved），但兩者並不相同，也與句子的時間點無關。句子的時態不會用過去分詞來表示，而是以 be 動詞來表示。

例句
The glass I just bought was broken.

我剛買的玻璃杯摔破了。

His homework was done by someone else.

他的功課是別人寫的。

This apartment was built a decade ago.

這公寓是十年前蓋好的。