Henrietta wrote:
> The subject dictates the passive or active construction.  If the subject
> is the doer, then the construction is active.  On the other hand, if
the > subject receives the action of the verb, then the construction is
> passive.  Therefore, the passive sentence is “The guests were told about
> the hotel facilities by the receptionist.”  The verb is “were told.”
> The receptionist receives the action.  “The receptionist told the guests
> about the hotel facilities” is the active construction.
> The “receptionist” is the doer of the action.

I confess that I do not know the context for the analysis provided by
Henrietta, but I immediately felt uncomfortable with this well-worn
semantic explanation of passive.  It made me wonder what Henrietta (or any
other grammar teacher) would reply to the sly student who asked about
voice in this sentence:

"The receptionist received a thump on the head from the disgruntled guest."

Just who are the "receiver" and the "doer" of the action here?  Would it
not be safer to stick with a strictly "syntactic" explanation of the
passive?  Will semantic explanations tend to confuse students? Might
syntactic explanations be more consistently clear? [i.e. focusing on the
form of the verb--BE + past participle]

I would be interested in reading the comments of other list members on
this sentence, with  examples of other verbs that turn the "subject" of
the sentence into a semantic "patient" and put the semantic "agent" into a
prepositional phrase or some other part of the sentence.


R. Michael Medley
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA 22802
[log in to unmask]  (540) 432-4051

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