English Language & Usage Asked by Erhan Ertaş on January 3, 2021
I was studying about passive voice from some good websites but I am really confused with these two sentences.
From grammarbank; Active: People say he was working very hard. Passive : He is said to have been working very hard.
From grammaring; Active: They reported Vincent was staying in Paris at that time. Passive : Vincent was reported to be staying in Paris at that time.
My question is about passivization of Past Continuous part. One of them is have been Ving and an other is be Ving. Are both correct? And if it is, what is the rule.
The Passive rule can only apply to a transitive verb in a single clause.
If there are two verbs in a sentence, you can't make the whole sentence passive.
In each of the example sentences, there are two verbs:
Say and report are transitive, so they can be passivized.
Work and stay are not transitive, so they can't be passivized.
This is why you shouldn't study grammar on the web.
Answered by John Lawler on January 3, 2021
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