# Marking the agent of the passive voice



## Russkitav

I don't have much knowledge in Hebrew (I can read the script and know the very very basic stuff), but I have a question I developed from looking at Arabic, another Semitic language. Traditionally in Arabic, the agent of the passive voice could not be expressed (if the agent were to be expressed, then normally the active voice is used instead) and in fact the name of the passive voice in Arabic roughly speaking translates to "unknown voice" since the purpose is to keep the agent unexpressed. Modern Arabic (and by 'modern" I mean like the past 2,3,4 centuries at most if I recall correctly, so not even including Classical Arabic) now does have some means of expressing the agent in a passive construction (although still the active voice is greatly preferred if the agent is to be expressed - the aforementioned means are more commonly seen in literature/journalism especially when translating from a foreign language text that uses a passive contruction with an expressed agent).

My question is does Biblical Hebrew also bar expressing the agent of the passive voice? What about Modern Hebrew (and if yes, is it like Arabic in that the active voice is preferred if the agent is to be expressed)? If yes to either of these, how is the agent marked?


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## GeriReshef

I lack the professional background for this discussion, and I'm even not sure I understood the question..
However: in Hebrew we can say הספר נלקח בידי דן (the book was taken by Dan), but this seems to be a technical exercise in restating an active sentence as a passive one, and I think you may find it more in formal announcements, rather than in spoken language.


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## origumi

I share Geri's first sentence.
However: in Hebrew you can form a sentence with passive meaning as active with unknown plural subject. For example, נתנו לי אוכל "(they) gave me food" actually means "I was given food". This is limited to post-biblical Hebrew I think.


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## Russkitav

GeriReshef said:


> I lack the professional background for this discussion, and I'm even not sure I understood the question..
> However: in Hebrew we can say הספר נלקח בידי דן (the book was taken by Dan), but this seems to be a technical exercise in restating an active sentence as a passive one, and I think you may find it more in formal announcements, rather than in spoken language.


If I understand you correctly, (a) the meaning of this sentence would normally be written in Hebrew as an active sentence instead (i.e. "Dan took the book") and (b) בידי is not a word that in all cases can be used to express the agent of the passive voice (or is it?)



origumi said:


> I share Geri's first sentence.
> However: in Hebrew you can form a sentence with passive meaning as active with unknown plural subject. For example, נתנו לי אוכל "(they) gave me food" actually means "I was given food". This is limited to post-biblical Hebrew I think.


By this, you mean that the sentence is active in form, but has a passive meaning?


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## origumi

Russkitav said:


> By this, you mean that the sentence is active in form, but has a passive meaning?


Yes. Passive voice in not too popular in Hebrew for whatever reason, so in this construct it's being avoided and rendered by an active form.


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## bazq

Technically you CAN mark an agent of a passive predicate using בידי/על ידי (lit. "in the hands of"/"upon the hands of"), and some other prepositions that certain predicates require. Nonetheless the passive voice isn't the go-to tool for elevating the register, unlike English or French for example, and other measures are taken which draw from biblical and other earlier stages of Hebrew, syntax-wise/morphology-wise/lexicon-wise in order to do that.

In everyday spoken Modern Hebrew the passive voice is practically nonexistant, and indeed the active voice is used for everything, and as origumi stated - an impersonal pronoun is the most common form (translates to the English somewhat archaic "one", French "on", German "mann") only in Hebrew there is no designated pronoun for it, instead the 3rd plural masculine conjugation of the verb is used.


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## hadronic

Often, one of the "purpose" or "benefit" of the passive voice is to keep the logical object first in the sentence, so as to give it topical strength. In that case, Hebrew just preposes the object, keeping the sentence active, while English or French would turn it to passive. 
Ex: 
The new Defence minister inspected an army guard. Mr Rabin (=name of the new minister)  was accompanied by the Chief of Staff. 
שר הביטחון החדש סקר היום משמר צה"ל. את מר רבין ליווה הרמטכ"ל. 
The un-preposed sentence הרמטכ"ל ליווה את מר רבין would sound too disconnected.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> However: in Hebrew you can form a sentence with passive meaning as active with unknown plural subject. For example, נתנו לי אוכל "(they) gave me food" actually means "I was given food". This is limited to post-biblical Hebrew I think.



I think this is found even in Biblical Hebrew.


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