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a) It is a special case of passive, commonly associated with reporting verbs, that is verbs of saying and thinking:
think, believe, say, report, know, consider, presume, hope…. These verbs are often followed by a to-infinitive form
in the passive.
These types of sentences are very common in newspapers and TV news, and more colloquially, when someone is
gossiping.
Ex.: Active- The police think the terrorists are in France.
Passive- The terrorists are thought to be in France.
b) How have we done this?
1. We take the subject of the second sentence (the terrorists)
2. We make the reporting verb think (simple present) passive in the same tense as in the active: are thought
(simple present passive).
3. Finally, the verb of the second sentence (are) becomes infinitive: to be.
Or we introduce “It” as the subject of the passive verb and keep the rest of the active sentence: It is thought that the
terrorists are in France.
c) Which form of the infinitive shall we use?
There are four infinitive forms depending on the tense of the active sentence.
1. Simple to write
2. Continuous to be writing
3. Perfect to have written
4. Perf. Cont. to have been writing
Subject causative verb (any tense) object action verb (past part)
This is not a real passive but it’s quite common when we pay someone else, in most cases an expert, to do things
we can’t or don’t want to do. The structure is always the same; therefore, be very careful!
Imagine you were rich and could have all sorts of things done for you; maybe you would like the same
things as me:
Nevertheless, sometimes things happen accidentally; then, we use GET instead of HAVE (although many
speakers wouldn’t). For example:
Stallone got his nose broken in a fight.
I got my purse stolen during the carnivals.
EXERCISES: