passive with two objects – English Grammar Profiler
Look, we have fourteen minutes
before that clip is sent to the police.
listen
The phrase “is sent” is in the passive voice and refers to the future. The passive voice is used when the focus is on the action, not who or what is performing the action. Here, the important thing is that the clip will be sent to the police, not who sends it. The person or system that will send it is not specified. Here is a past tense example:
Fortunately for you, however,
your daughter was brought to my asylum.
listen
A ditransitive verb is a verb that takes two objects. In this case, “brought” has two objects:
- The direct object: “your daughter”, who is the person that was brought.
- The indirect object: “my asylum”, which is the place to where she was brought.
So, the action (verb) is “brought”, the thing being acted upon (direct object) is “your daughter”, and the recipient of that action (indirect object) is “my asylum”. This makes “brought” a ditransitive verb in this context. Who or what brought her is not specified in this example.
“This post is brought to you by English Grammar Pro.” The previous sentence is an example of B2 level grammar. If that interests you, then read on.
There are a few points in the category of PASSIVES and verbs taking two objects that overlap and clash for which CEFR level they indicate. Before trying to understand them it might also be a good idea to understand the ideas of direct and indirect objects. There’s a really well-explained page of information here.
But in a nutshell, most of the time, the direct object is not a person while the indirect object is a person and comes first in the sentence.
Point 26 at B2 is defined as:
with a range of tenses and verbs needing two objects (e.g. give, offer, sell) with the direct object in subject position and the indirect object in a prepositional phrase.
My name was
_VBgiven_VVNto_IIme_P
training is_VBgiven_VVNto_TOstaff_VVI
The job has_VHbeen_VBoffered_VVNto_IIme_P
(note claws7 error, the tagger can’t tell the difference.)
The above point is easy to give a complexity level due to the length of the string. However the rest of the passive points overlap at A2, B1 and B2, so are less reliable to find automatically with the complexity checker or on corpora. For example, see A2 past simple passive here.
Point 19 at B2 is defined as:
a wide range of verbs needing two objects, putting the indirect object in the subject position.
(same as B1 only difference is ‘offered’ and can use any tense!)
There is no mention which tense must be included. And surprisingly, the EGP examples seem to suggest that a verb such as ‘give’ is an indicator of ‘wide’ range. The examples contain: present perfect/past simple + offered/given
If we convert the previous examples:
I was given my name. Staff have been offered training.
Point 6 at B1 is defined:
past simple passive with a limited range of verbs needing two objects, putting the indirect object in the subject position.
was/were + given
Finally, there is Pearson’s GSE56 B1+ defined:
make passive statements with ditransitive verbs like ‘tell’ and ‘give’.
dative as subject of passive
- He was given a book.
- The children love to be told stories.
CORPUS RESEARCH
The main way we can ensure more useful information about these structures is by doing the following quite specific search on iWeb:
_n _vb _vvn to _p
1 POST IS BROUGHT TO YOU 1299
(B2 point 26, the noun ‘post’ is the direct object in the subject position and ‘you’ is the indirect object in the prepositional phrase.)
2 ART IS BROUGHT TO YOU 405
3 POST WAS BROUGHT TO YOU 399
4 EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU 399
5 ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU 267
6 EMAIL IS SENT TO YOU 147 7 SERVICE IS PROVIDED TO YOU 138 8 CONTENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU 137 9 PODCAST IS BROUGHT TO YOU 136 10 PRODUCT IS DISPATCHED TO YOU 127
11 ARTICLE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU 126
12 ITEM IS RETURNED TO US 126 13 INFORMATION IS PROVIDED TO YOU 121 14 SITE IS PROVIDED TO YOU 116 15 EVENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU 113 16 FORCE IS APPLIED TO IT 109 17 PACKAGE IS RETURNED TO US 108 18 PRODUCT WAS RECOMMENDED TO ME 105 19 RECIPE IS BROUGHT TO YOU 86 20 CHILDREN WERE BORN TO THEM 84 21 GOODS ARE RETURNED TO US 83 22 STORY WAS TOLD TO ME 81 23 APPLICATION BE MAILED TO YOU 81 24 EMAIL WAS SENT TO YOU 80 25 ORDER IS RETURNED TO US 79 26 WEBSITE IS PROVIDED TO YOU 78 27 RECIPE WAS GIVEN TO ME 78 28 PRESSURE IS APPLIED TO IT 73 29 PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO IT 69 30 PEACE BE MULTIPLIED TO YOU 69 = old biblical type of English 31 SERIES IS BROUGHT TO YOU 68 32 HOUSE IS LEFT TO YOU 67 33 SERVICES ARE PROVIDED TO YOU 67 34 PROGRAM IS BROUGHT TO YOU 64 35 SHOW IS BROUGHT TO YOU 61 36 INFORMATION IS BROUGHT TO YOU 61 37 MOLECULES ARE ATTRACTED TO EACH 60 38 COPY BE MAILED TO YOU 59 39 INFORMATION IS PROVIDED TO US 59 40 ITEMS ARE RETURNED TO US 58 41 ENTRIES ARE LIMITED TO ONE 55 42 BOOK WAS RECOMMENDED TO ME 54 43 PRODUCT WAS PROVIDED TO ME 54 44 LINKS ARE PROVIDED TO YOU 54
45 MESSAGE IS SENT TO YOU 52