Active to Personal Passive - what do we do with "may be"?

Question

If I wanted to turn this sentence written in the active voice: "People believe he may be fired", to one with Personal passive structure, how should it sound like at the end? 
He is believed to ... 1) be likely fired; 2) may be fired;

3) The whole sentence should be "he is expected to be fired".

Please advise which one is grammatically correct and natural, if none - I would appreciate suggestions.
Thank you!

LPH · Answer

Neither possibility is idiomatic and it seems that there is no way to use a modal as they are not use with "to". The following way of completing the sentence results in something with approximately the same meaning  but there must be other means, perhaps more interesting, and you might try to see what you can do yourself along this line.

He is believed to be a legitimate target for a possible firing.

If we were to say "He is believed to be the target of a possible firing." (shorter) there would be insinuated that there are people considering the execution of this action.

Other examples

He is believed to incur the risk of being fired. (rather formal)
He is believed to be in risk of being fired. (appears to be somewhat contrived)

Active to Personal Passive - what do we do with "may be"?

One Answer

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question