Using passive voice
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Passive voice with verbs + prepositions | page 1 of 2 |
Phrasal verbs
When a preposition follows a verb, it may be attached to the verb, forming a phrasal verb:
Anyone can set up a Chinese herbal medicine shop ... (SCMP 25/4/94)
A couple in Sha Tin now looked after his 12-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son.
There are, in fact, two kinds of phrasal verbs: those like set up, in which the
preposition can be moved to the end of the clause following the object, eg Anyone
can set one up; and those like look after, in which the preposition cannot be
moved in this way, ie you cannot say the couple looked his children after 
.
The set up type clauses can normally be passivised, provided of course that they
take an object, ie that they are transitive 
:
A Chinese herbal medicine shop can be set up by anyone ....
Very many of the look after type of phrasal verb can also be passivised:
His 12-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son were now looked after by a couple in Sha Tin. (SCMP 14/10/92)
However, phrasal verbs of this type cannot be passivised as freely as those of the set up type. For example, the passive version of the following sentence is not possible:
The party also stands for a better social services safety net. (Bank of English)
A better social services safety net is also stood for by our party.
The passive version of the next sentence sounds rather strange out of context and would probably not be found in formal written English, although there may be contexts in which one could hear it said:
| They came across the boat inside the Australian Fishing Zone. (Bank of English) |
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| ? | The boat was come across inside the Australian Fishing Zone. |
Phrasal verbs
Other verbs followed by preposition
