Remarks on the Passive Voice in English and Romanian
Remarks on the Passive Voice in English and Romanian

Summary/Abstract: The author of the present paper attempt a detailed presentation of the main usage differences between the manifestation of the Passive in English and Romanian, starting from the specific recurrences, exceptions, difficulties, pitfalls and idiosyncrasies that can form the basis for an efficient didactic approach. Given that the syntactic structures pertaining to the scope of the Passive can sometimes pose problems for foreign learners of English, and the English structures can be said to be comparatively more complicated, the need is felt to distinguish between the two systems, mainly as the more recent editions of the grammar books published in Romania have drastically and fundamentally reconsidered a lot of issues belonging to this field. After sketching the theoretical scope of the issue, the authors compare the main structures, quirks and restrictions, as well as the semantic, functional and communicative implications of the passive constructs in English and Romanian, with due examples and discussion. A list of English verbs (selected from an English monolingual dictionary), which are only, or usually, used in the passive, is provided. There follows a section including a number of further comparative usage notes concerning the Passive. The final section of the paper contains the (mainly didactic) conclusions to the presentation, stressing the need for more resolute attempts at generating better didactic and theoretical materials in teaching ESL in this country.

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