# All Nordic Languages: passive voice



## jonquiliser

I'll go for English today as, much though I would like to, I wouldn't understand answers in Icelandic (or Faroese). What I'm wondering is how the passive voice is formed in the respective languages, and if there are more than one way to do it.

In Swedish there are three different ways; the so-called s-passive, constructions with _man _and constructions with the verb _bli_.

Especially I'm interested to know whether the other Nordic languages use _man_ and _s-passive_.


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## Alxmrphi

Can you explain what you mean by "man and s-passive", I know I can't help you but I'm interested to know the structures you're referring to (no need for detailed Swedish, just a 'sort-of-how-it-works) kinda explanation.

Thanks!


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## Andreas_Jensen

jonquiliser said:


> I'll go for English today as, much though I would like to, I wouldn't understand answers in Icelandic (or Faroese). What I'm wondering is how the passive voice is formed in the respective languages, and if there are more than one way to do it.
> 
> In Swedish there are three different ways; the so-called s-passive, constructions with _man _and constructions with the verb _bli_.
> 
> Especially I'm interested to know whether the other Nordic languages use _man_ and _s-passive_.


 
I'm not huge on grammatics, but I think I know what you mean  In Danish we have the same forms, eg:

"Her serveres aftensmaden klokken 22:00"
"Her serverer man aftensmad klokken 22:00"
"Her bliver aftensmaden serveret klokken 22:00"

(eng: Dinner is served at 22:00 here)

Tell me if I've misunderstood you.

Andreas


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## jonquiliser

Nope, Andreas, you didn't misunderstand me! Seems it's identical in Swedish and Danish then (although which are used in which cases may vary, of course). 

Alex, the s-passive is a construction where an s is added to the verb; _man_-passive is a sort of passive with an active verb as there is a subject ("impersonal subject"), _man._ This last one is roughly the one-construction in English. So, using Andreas' examples, you'd have:

Haer (sorry!) servera*s* kvaellsmat.
*Man *serverar kvaellsmat.

(Haer *blir *kvaellsmat servera*d* - this last one isn't very common in this kind of phrases, at least not in Swedish.)


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## kirsitn

Same in Norwegian, but the construction with "man" is not so common.

"Kveldsmat serveres kl 22."
"Kveldsmat blir servert kl 22."


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## Andreas_Jensen

The "man"-way isn't really common in Danish either. The other two are more used, I think.


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## Sepia

Andreas_Jensen said:


> The "man"-way isn't really common in Danish either. The other two are more used, I think.




Right! It exists, but many teachers recommend that one does not use this form to express passive tense. (Translate that sentence and you'll know what "man" is normally used for).


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## Knut

Sepia said:


> Right! It exists, but many teachers recommend that one does not use this form to express passive tense. (Translate that sentence and you'll know what "man" is normally used for).



Why is "man" not recommended? 

"Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00" and "Her serveres aften kl. 22.00" may very well be equal good depending on the situation.

"Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00," tenkte han surt.
"Her serves aften kl. 22.00," informerte hun gjestene sine.

In the first sentence "man" is used in a negative way and if that is the meaning no teacher should recommend that "man" is not used.


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## Arrius

The impersonal structure with _man,_ still so common in German as also its equivalent in Dutch, seems to be somewhat in disfavour in the Nordic languages. I wonder if this is for the same reason that the impersonal pronoun _one _has to a large extent disappeared from English, namely because it has come to sound posh and condescending: "_One just doesn't do that sort of thing, you know"._ It is invariably used when there is an attempt to imitate the manner of speaking of the British Queen.


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## María Madrid

I was taught man was an impersonal structure, not passive as you can use man with verbs in passive and active mood. 

Found this on the net:

Kan *man finna* sig själv? *Man ändras* hela tiden så när *man finner sig* själv... 
Blekinge: *Man blev sparkad* i ansiktet och rånad

Hälsningar, M


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## Sepia

Knut said:


> Why is "man" not recommended?
> 
> "Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00" and "Her serveres aften kl. 22.00" may very well be equal good depending on the situation.
> 
> "Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00," tenkte han surt.
> "Her serves aften kl. 22.00," informerte hun gjestene sine.
> 
> In the first sentence "man" is used in a negative way and if that is the meaning no teacher should recommend that "man" is not used.



Some claim it is too impersonal although I find that a better argument is that  it puts more focus on the wrong element of the sentence.

When you say "maden serveres" which is a genuine passive the receiver automatically has his focus on the food "mad" whereas the senctnce "man serverer maden" food has suddenly become the object - we don't have a passive any more, and the receiver automatically attempts to picture who "man" is. This is not what you want him to. That is a relatively unimportant information.

"Man" is rather for a sentence like "I Kina spiser man hunde" (almost like the famous film title). Here you don't want the receiver to have much focus on the dogs; you want to point out that it is general usage in China to eat dogs. To gether with the adverbial "i Kina" the subject "man" gives a relatively clear picture. Personally I think that "man" without any such supplementary info builds up a very vague picture.

But it is also a matter of taste. Not all people can or desire to express themselves with that degree of exactness. But it is an option.

This sentence is pretty clever I think - and it would also work in Danish (exept for a few tidbits):

"Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00," tenkte han surt.

In Danish it would be: Her serveres man om aftenen kl. 22.00

But it differs from the other variations - if I am not mistaken, it is the only one of all examples in this thread because it has neither a subject nor a direct object. The verb, as you see is a normal -s passive and "man" is the indirect object. The rest are adverbials. So this is not really the "man-passive" I am referring to. The dangerous thing in Danish, however, is that there is nothing that marks a word as a dative case.

The same sentence i a different context could be:

De to missionærer lå bagbundet i hytten.
"Jeg har set kannibal-høvdingens spiseplan."
"Hvad stod der på den?"
“Her serveres man om aftenen kl. 22.00."
"..."

Here "man" has become the subject without changing the sentence the least bit.


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## Lemminkäinen

In addition to the *-s* passive and *bli* + past participle (both of which can be summed up as *handlingspassiv*), there's also another form, calles *tilstandspassiv*, produced with *være* + past participle:

- Huset bygges
- Huset blir/ble bygd
- Huset er/var bygd


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## Knut

Sepia said:


> Some claim it is too impersonal although I find that a better argument is that  it puts more focus on the wrong element of the sentence.
> 
> When you say "maden serveres" which is a genuine passive the receiver automatically has his focus on the food "mad" whereas the senctnce "man serverer maden" food has suddenly become the object - we don't have a passive any more, and the receiver automatically attempts to picture who "man" is. This is not what you want him to. That is a relatively unimportant information.
> 
> "Man" is rather for a sentence like "I Kina spiser man hunde" (almost like the famous film title). Here you don't want the receiver to have much focus on the dogs; you want to point out that it is general usage in China to eat dogs. To gether with the adverbial "i Kina" the subject "man" gives a relatively clear picture. Personally I think that "man" without any such supplementary info builds up a very vague picture.
> 
> But it is also a matter of taste. Not all people can or desire to express themselves with that degree of exactness. But it is an option.
> 
> This sentence is pretty clever I think - and it would also work in Danish (exept for a few tidbits):
> 
> "Her serveres man aften kl. 22.00," tenkte han surt.
> 
> In Danish it would be: Her serveres man om aftenen kl. 22.00
> 
> But it differs from the other variations - if I am not mistaken, it is the only one of all examples in this thread because it has neither a subject nor a direct object. The verb, as you see is a normal -s passive and "man" is the indirect object. The rest are adverbials. So this is not really the "man-passive" I am referring to. The dangerous thing in Danish, however, is that there is nothing that marks a word as a dative case.
> 
> The same sentence i a different context could be:
> 
> De to missionærer lå bagbundet i hytten.
> "Jeg har set kannibal-høvdingens spiseplan."
> "Hvad stod der på den?"
> “Her serveres man om aftenen kl. 22.00."
> "..."
> 
> Here "man" has become the subject without changing the sentence the least bit.



Det som her skrives kan man også godt være enig i.


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## Spectre scolaire

Talking about passive voice in Scandinavian languages – ! *not* Nordic ! – I find the Swedish construction in _*past tenses*_ typologically interesting.

Here are some examples of perfect passive in Swedish:

Det har serverats mat, dricka och kaffe, “food, [soft]drinks and coffee have been served”.

Kaffe och smörgåsar har serverats, “coffee and sandwiches have been served”.

Even in 1st person singular:

Jag har serverats snigelgröt en enda gång, “I have only once been served _snigelgröt_”

-whatever _snigelgröt_ is, some sort of porridge, I imagine – obviously made of sniglar, “escargots”  It sounds delicious...

This kind of construction doesn’t work in Danish and Norwegian. On the other hand, in *Modern Greek* the same type of passive obtains.

An example of perfect passive in Greek:

το φαγητό έχει σερβιριστεί (IPA: [to fajitó éçi serviristí]), “food has been [= is] served”

- in which t denotes passive voice – being here the (phonologically modified) allomorph {θ} of an _ad hoc_ morpheme {θηκ} used to denote passive. Auxilliary verb is “have” – as in Swedish.

Here is aorist passive in Greek (together with its Scandinavian morphologically corresponding forms): 

χρησιμοποιήθηκε [χrisimopçíθike], *Swedish*: brukades, *Danish*: blev brugt. The verb used is... “use”.

_Aorist_ corresponds _grosso modo_ to Scandinavian perfect tense, but denotes basically _aspect_. It is somehow difficult – without a context – to make a clear-cut comparison between Greek and Scandinavian verbal tenses. There is also an _imperfect passive_ in Greek, but this form does not use the morpheme in question.

And – at last – here is perfect passive in Greek (together with the Scandinavian morphologically corresponding forms):

έχει χρησιμοποιηθεί [éçi χrisimopçiθí], *Swedish*: har brukats, *Danish*: er bleven brugt

I find it intriguing that Swedish has gone its own way in terms of passive constructions, but I imagine there is an historical explanation to it.
 ​


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## Icetrance

Lemminkäinen said:


> In addition to the *-s* passive and *bli* + past participle (both of which can be summed up as *handlingspassiv*), there's also another form, calles *tilstandspassiv*, produced with *være* + past participle:
> 
> - Huset bygges
> - Huset blir/ble bygd
> - Huset er/var bygd



Thank you!

Is the"Huset er/var bygd" really correct, though?

Is "bygges" present tense?

I'm not sure.

Tusen Takk.


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## myšlenka

Icetrance said:


> Thank you!
> 
> Is the"Huset er/var bygd" really correct, though?
> 
> Is "bygges" present tense?
> 
> I'm not sure.
> 
> Tusen Takk.


I assume the question is more about the choice of auxiliary (_bli_ versus _være_), and the answer is that both are perfectly fine, but it depends on what you want to express.

_Huset blir/ble bygd_ - this refers to an event of house building.
_Huset er/var bygd_ - this refers to the state that holds after the event of building a house.
(This amounts to what Lemminkäinen was saying.)

As for _huset bygges_, it is indeed present tense.


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## Icetrance

myšlenka said:


> I assume the question is more about the choice of auxiliary (_bli_ versus _være_), and the answer is that both are perfectly fine, but it depends on what you want to express.
> 
> _Huset blir/ble bygd_ - this refers to an event of house building.
> _Huset er/var bygd_ - this refers to the state that holds after the event of building a house.
> (This amounts to what Lemminkäinen was saying.)
> 
> As for _huset bygges_, it is indeed present tense.



Tusen Takk!


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