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My friend says that the sentence He is an honest man can be passivized. My English friends and I are saying that the sentence can’t be passivized since the verb is intransitive and there is no object in the sentence.

But then he shows an entry from R.D. Grave or some other grammar book published by Oxford that’s arguing that the sentence can be passivized as It is said that he is an honest man.

Now I am in a fix. Should I follow this grammar book or other grammar books published by Cambridge or Oxford?

I hope the experts at Stack Exchange will clarify my confusion about this.

tchrist
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Jvlnarasimharao
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    It is said [by someone: yes, passive] that he is an honest man. BUT it is not the passive of your sentence. – Lambie Jan 20 '24 at 17:50
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    Active and passive voices only make sense when the verb refers to doing something to something else. I don't think it can be applied to verbs of state like "to be". – Barmar Jan 20 '24 at 17:59
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    Anyone saying that 'It is said that he is an honest man.' is the passive form of 'He is an honest man.' or that 'He is an honest man.' can be passivised is misunderstanding the concept of passivisation. 'That he is an honest man is said by some' is the passive transformation of 'Some say that he is an honest man.' (which latter sentence can obviously be passivised). And 'It is said [by some] that he is an honest man' introduces it-clefting. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 20 '24 at 19:14
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    Not in this case, but horse genealogies can use "is by" as in "Auguste Rodin [winner of the 2023 Epsom Derby] is by Deep Impact [his father] out of Rhododendron [his mother]". – Henry Jan 20 '24 at 21:05
  • Please, please, please see this ELU question and especially this paper about the passive of Geoff Pullum’s. I earnestly beg you to read the entire Pullum paper. Please. – tchrist Jan 20 '24 at 21:45
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    "It is said that he is an honest man" is not the passive version of "He is an honest man". – BillJ Jan 21 '24 at 09:34
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    @EdwinAshworth I was very clear: It is said [by who knows whom] he is an honest man. is passive, just not the passive of this: He is an honest man. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 16:00
  • @BillJ Re your last comment: Obviously, it isn't. As I said in my first comment. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 16:06
  • You can sort-of-passivize it, in a sense, depending on why you're asking: you can say "honesty is one of his qualities". Of course this is not making the verb passive in any traditional sense, but it is doing the same subject-object flip to the sentence. Personally I would quite happily claim that this is a legit passivization. – Patrick Stevens Jan 21 '24 at 22:57
  • @Lambie I'm sorry, why is this addressed to me? As I voted to transfer to ELL, I considered a comment more appropriate than an answer. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 21 '24 at 23:09
  • If it could be passivised, the passive form would be something like ‘*an honest man is been by him’. But see ‘Why is the verb form "am been" always grammatically incorrect?’ – Tim Pederick Jan 22 '24 at 05:11
  • "R.D. Grave or some other grammar book published by Oxford" is not a very clear reference (I can't figure out what it refers to). It would help everyone if you could tell us the specific author, book and page that your friend is citing. – sumelic Jan 22 '24 at 06:18
  • It would help if you explained why you want to passivise it. – Stuart F Jan 22 '24 at 10:05
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    @tchrist I suppose the central statement from that essay -- "today, mistaken charges of using the passive voice are commonplace" -- would be agreed to by you, and that it would be applied by you to the example the OP posted? ;-) – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jan 22 '24 at 14:01

3 Answers3

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  • He is an honest man. Verbs that are static cannot be made passive.

  • He makes cakes for children. = Cakes are made by him for children.

  • It is said [by someone] that he is an honest man.

It is said [by someone] is a passive form.

The active form would be: Someone said he is an honest man.

Please note:

The OP said the sentence cannot be passivized. His friend, citing some book by someone named R. D. Grave (?) published by Oxford (Press?) that gives this sentence, says it can by this:

  • It is said that he is an honest man.

I say this: The OP is right about the sentence: He is an honest man. There is no active verb there, therefore it cannot be made passive.

HOWEVER, By thinking that the Grave's example is passive, or thinking his friend might be right, he is being misled by his friend who doesn't realize that although this: "It is said [by whomever] that he is an honest man". is passive, it is not the passive of this: He is an honest man, which cannot be made passive.

I hope that is now clear.

Lambie
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    Not true. Some stative verbs like "love", for example, can occur in passive clauses: "Everyone loves her" ~ "She is loved by everyone". – BillJ Jan 21 '24 at 10:45
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    Does not seem a correct transformation of the initial sentence. He is ... is a sentence about a quality of the man. It is said ... is a sentence about other people opinion of a quality of the man. They carry a different meaning. – FluidCode Jan 21 '24 at 13:59
  • @BillJ For me, love is an active verb. Is that CGEL that says it isn't? – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 15:46
  • The point is that "love" is a stative verb, not a dynamic one, that can occur in both active and passive clauses, as in the examples I gave. – BillJ Jan 21 '24 at 15:51
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    @BillJ No, that is your point. I really fail to see how "Everyone loves her." is stative. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 15:56
  • @FluidCode Please read the update to my answer which had been, basically, a comment under fev's answer below. I moved it. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 15:57
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    "Love" is widely accepted to be a stative verb. It's a simple fact of English. How could it possibly be a dynamic verb? – BillJ Jan 21 '24 at 16:35
  • @FluidCode You removed your comment and now BillJ's remark comes under my answer and makes no sense. – Lambie Jan 21 '24 at 16:40
  • 'This fact is known by all linguists' is an obvious passivisation of a stative usage. A continuing state is referred to. 'This concept is learned by all linguists' is an obvious passivisation of a dynamic usage. A transformation of state is described. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 23 '24 at 19:24
  • @EdwinAshworth I have no idea whatsoever why you posted that comment. All be verb forms are stative. – Lambie Jan 23 '24 at 22:58
  • The passivisation is from the active 'All linguists know this fact' where 'know' is obviously stative. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 23 '24 at 23:02
  • @Lambie I did not remove the comment. Actually I was not following this thread, I just found out. It must have been removed by an administrator. – FluidCode Jan 24 '24 at 12:29
  • @EdwinAshworth Why are you telling me that and what's it got to do with the question? Just giving another example of a stative with a passive? I can look up my own list. And I also do not agree with what some linguists think are stative. – Lambie Jan 24 '24 at 14:34
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Not quite. If you understand your example as having omitted what you see between brackets:

[Someone/People/They say that] "he is an honest man".

Then what your friend proposes as a passivized version:

It is said that he is an honest man.

is a passivization of the omitted clause, not of the rest. The verb say is changed to is said, and this has nothing to do with the verb is from "He is an honest man".

Otherwise, if that were a 'rule', there would be no statement that could not be passivized.

fev
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    It is not his friend that says that. It is the book that says that It is said he is an honest man. is passive. There was nothing omitted. The OP just did not understand the example in the book and his friend didn't understand that He is an honest man. cannot be made passive. And now, you left out: It is said [by some] that he is an honest man. – Lambie Jan 20 '24 at 19:09
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Choosing a grammar book or rule to follow depends on the situation and how strictly you adhere to traditional grammar rules. Some modern grammar books may allow more flexibility in interpretation, considering constructions like "It is said that..." to be a type of passivization for practical purposes, even though it does not follow the classical model of passive transformation. If the goal is to stay aligned with traditional grammar rules, then your understanding that intransitive verbs cannot be passivized would be correct.

The sentence "He is an honest man" uses the verb "is," which is a linking or copular verb connecting the subject "he" with the subject complement "an honest man." Traditional passive construction typically involves sentences where transitive verbs are used, that is, verbs that require a direct object to complete their meaning.

The phrase "It is said that he is an honest man" is not a direct passive equivalent of "He is an honest man." Instead, it is a way to report a statement and does not transform the original sentence into a passive voice in the traditional sense. Rather, it introduces a reporting clause, "It is said that..." to convey the same information indirectly.

Since your friend shared some references, here are some that support the traditional view:

  1. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik.
  2. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum.
  3. Practical English Usage by Michael Swan.

These references should support the traditional understanding of passive constructions and clarify why the sentence "He is an honest man" would not be considered passivizable by their standards. They would likely categorize "It is said that he is an honest man" as a reporting structure rather than a passive voice transformation.

Dae-Jung Dichtermeister
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