Talk:Circumstantial voice

English examples?
Is "I was given an apple by him." an example of circumstantial passive voice in English? Because it promotes the oblique argument in "He gave an apple to me" to subject. Keith Galveston (talk) 06:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No, it's a plain old passive. It's the passive of the ditransitive form of "give" where the recipient is the primary object ("He gave me the apple."), not the monotransitive form with the recipient expressed obliquely as a prepositional phrase ("He gave the apple to me."). It's an example of dative shift. &mdash; Gwalla | Talk 17:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this page does need examples of whatever this voice conveys. From reading the article as someone with not too much experience in linguistics, I have no idea what this voice is supposed to be used for. 70.114.167.4 (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The circumstantial voice is when the subject of an active voice is omitted so that the object can move into its position. An example might be:

'I know that man's name.' (active)

'Man's name that was known.' (circumstantial)

'Please forgive my poor manners.' (active)

'Poor manners of mine please forgive.' (circumstantial)

'I ate the pie with a fork.' (active)

'A fork was eaten the pie with.' (circumstantial)

The book Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-cultural Perspective (copyright 1992) provides the example of

'You used a stick to beat the child.' (active)

'A stick was used [by you] to beat that child.' (circumstantial) Urskadamus (talk) 12:15, 1 June 2015 (UTC) Talk


 * Those last two examples are certainly something-! 2601:244:4502:B040:688B:467E:107:2813 (talk) 04:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)