German
German has an impersonal passive voice, as shown in the examples below:
Active Voice:
- Die Kinder schlafen.
- "The children sleep."
Impersonal Passive Voice:
- Es wird geschlafen.
- It is slept.
- "Someone is sleeping."
In the latter example, the subject (Die Kinder, "the children") has been deleted, and in its place is the dummy es "it".
The subject can be reintroduced using the preposition von, "by":
- Es wird von den Kindern geschlafen.
- It is by the children slept.
- "It is slept by the children."
The sentence can also be constructed without an overt subject by placing an adverbial in the first position:
- Heute wird geschlafen. Dort wird geschlafen.
- Today is slept. There is slept.
- "Someone is sleeping today. Someone is sleeping there."
Read more about this topic: Impersonal Passive Voice
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,—
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“The German language “speaks Being,” while all the others merely “speak of Being.””
—Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)
“Have you never heard of German Becoming, of German Wandering, of the endless migratings of the German soul? Even foreigners know our word ‘Wanderlust.’ If you like, the German is the eternal student, the eternal searcher, among the peoples of the earth.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)