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Position of “by (agent)” in Passive Sentences I’d like to know where exactly we should place the “by + (agent)” in passive sentences? I checked it out in a few books, one of which says it is to be put after the verb of a passive sentence while the others say at the end of a passive sentence. For short sentences like “The thief was arrested by the police.”, I don’t have any problems with them. But when it comes to longer sentences, such as the following ones, I’ll have doubts about their positions although they both are correct and sound natural to me. 1) All of the documents will have been dealt with by Nancy at home by tomorrow afternoon. 2) All of the documents will have been dealt with at home by tomorrow afternoon by Nancy. Actually, are there any rules for placing the “by + (agent)” in passive sentences? In long sentences with adverbials of manner, time, place, etc at the end, does the “by + (agent)” follow the verb rather than follow the adverbials? Thank you in advance!
2015年7月19日 18:53
回答 · 11
Good question. Native speakers have a tendency to overuse the passive voice, nevertheless, doing so is bad style. Just because a structure exists, doesn't mean you should use it all the time. The truth is, if the agent is important, you should seriously consider using the active voice. As far as quite, fairly, and rather, there are significant differences between UK and US English. You can read the comments to my answer here: http://www.italki.com/question/312844
2015年7月19日
The passive voice is a useful structure, but it becomes unwieldy with this many adverbs. In other words, neither of your solutions works, and you will need to recast the sentence. For example: Nancy, working at home, will have dealt with all the documents by tomorrow afternoon.
2015年7月19日
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