PASSIVE VOICE AND RELATIVE CLAUSE Syntax Created by

PASSIVE VOICE AND RELATIVE CLAUSE “Syntax” Created by: Annisa Maharani (1305020071) Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Islamic University of Syekh-Yusuf Tangerang 2016/2017

Passive Voice A final feature to consider in verb groups is that of voice. Voice refers to whether a sentence or utterance is in the ACTIVE and PASSIVE. All our examples so far have been active. The majority of sentences and utterances are in the active and so this feature is not overtly on a tree diagram.

Let’s look again at an example of an active sentence : S NP Det VP N Vgp NP [trans] AUX V det N TENSE A dog (past) chased that girl

On the tree diagram, the passive is shown as: S NP Det VP N Vgp PP [trans] AUX TENSE V PASS P NP Det N That girl (past) was chased by a dog

Passives can also appear with other auxiliaries. So for example we could have : • modal + passive + V The dog may be given a bone (by Sue) • Present tense + perfect + passsive + V The dog has been given a bone (by Sue) • Present tense + progressive + passive + V The dog is being given a bone (by Sue)

Example to use auxiliary verbs together: S NP Det VP N Vgp NP PP [ditrans] AUX MOD PERFECT PROG V PASS Det N P NP N The dog may have been being given a bone by Sue

Do as an auxiliary is the first contituent of the verb group and therefore carries tense: S NP VP PRO Vgp NP [trans] AUX V N TENSE She (pres) does like bananas

Relative Clause A relative clause is a bit different from anything we’ve looked at so far because it introduces a kind of subsidiary sentence into the main one. For example : The cat which is lying on the mat loves dogs If we take the relative clause out of the above example, you can see that it almost forms another S in its own right :

S VP NP Vgp (prep) PRO AUX TENSE PROG PP V NP P DET N Which (pres) is lying on the mat s P p. O

Which in the above example is a RELATIVE PRONOUN, so called because it stands in place of and relates to the cat. Other relatives pronouns are who and that, as in : • The girl who was chased by the dog was crying • He kicked a cat that was lying in the road

Example of the tree diagram: The cat which (pres) is lying on the mat loves dogs

S VP NP Vgp [trans] Nⁱ DET AUX N NP V N S₂ TENSE The cat which is lying on the mat (pres) loves dogs

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