When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice.
English language use a periphrastic passive voice; that is, it is not a single word form, but rather a construction making use of other word forms. Specifically, it is made up of a form of the auxiliary verb to be and a past participle of the main verb.
The frequency of occurrence of the English Passive Voice is very great, greater than in Russian. One of the reasons is that the number of verbs capable of forming the Passive Voice is greater in English than in Russian. In many languages: PV – transitive verbs, in English: PV – any object verb.
The idea of the Passive voice is expressed not only by means of “to be + P2”, but by means of “get”, “come”, “go” + P2 and “get” + passive infinitive (ingressive meaning - He got involved; He got to be respected). The verbs get and become retain to some extent their lexical meaning;
Passive constructions:
• Direct Passive (The letter was written yesterday)
• Indirect Passive (I was given a very interesting book)
• Prepositional Passive (The doctor was sent for)
• Phraseological Passive (Care should be taken not to confuse these words)
• Adverbial Passive (The house has not been lived in for many years)