David,
        Actually it is not a good definition of a passive sentence.

David D Mulroy wrote:

> At the risk of seeming very ignorant or obtuse -- I am puzzled by Bob
> Yates's citation of the definition of the passive voice from the web site,
> Plain English.  It seems to me to be a good definition, especially
> the statement that the passive voice in English is normally created with a
> form of BE and a past participle.
> > How do you identify passive sentences?
> >
> >  Passive sentences have two basic features, although both do not appear
> > in
> >  every passive sentence.
> >
> >       A past participle (generally with "ed" on the end); and
> >
> >       A form of the verb "to be."

The only way the subordinate clause beginning with "although" can be
correct
is if the get-passive gets identified as a passive construction, too.  I
don't think that passive construction gets defined very frequently in
the handbooks.

If we consider that the "passive sentence" means a tense clause in
passive voice, then you need BOTH a form of the verb BE and the past
participle.

Notice that under this definition, a perfect construction could be
identified as a passive construction as well as a progressive
construction.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University