Passive
Irish commonly uses the impersonal form (also called the autonomous form) instead of the passive voice.
| Buaileadh | an madra. |
| one beat (pret.) | the dog |
| "Someone beat the dog"/"The dog was beaten." | |
In the perfect, the passive voice is formed by using the passive participle with the existential verb.
| Tá | an fhuinneog | briste | (ag mo dheartháir.) |
| is | the window | broken | (by my brother) |
| "The window has been broken (by my brother)." | |||
Read more about this topic: Irish Syntax
Famous quotes containing the word passive:
“She has taken her passive pigeon poor,
She has buried him down and down.
He never shall sally to Sally
Nor soil any roofs of the town.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread.... The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)