[General] The documents is being couriered

[Anil Giria]

The documents is being couriered to your office address.

1) Is the above sentence in passive voice? If so, what would be the active sentence for it. I understand the active would be:

The documents has been couriered to your office address.

2) If we are using documents (plural), should not we use "are" instead of "is"?

 

[MikeNewYork]

1. Your rephrasing is also passive voice. It is just a different tense.

2. Yes.

 

[NortT]

The documents is being couriered to your office address.

1) Is the above sentence in passive voice? If so, what would be the active sentence for it. I understand the active would be:

Maybe something like that? "A courier delivered the documents to your office." Is it right?

 

[MikeNewYork]

It is active voice and it is correct. However, to continue with the verb tense in the OP's question, I suggest "A courier is delivering the documents to your office."

 

[Anil Giria]

1. Your rephrasing is also passive voice. It is just a different tense.

2. Yes.

I thought the rephrasing sentence was in Present perfect tense. Is the same in passive as we have used " couriered" after "been"? ( may be one of the reason, but I an not very sure. Please clarify.)

 

[Anil Giria]

1. Your rephrasing is also passive voice. It is just a different tense.

I understand that passive voice can't be classified in tenses.

 

[MikeNewYork]

That is incorrect. Your rephrasing above was present perfect passive. The passive voice is indicated by a past participle following a form of the verb "to be".

I sent you a package. (active voice, past tense)
A package was sent to you. (passive voice, past tense)
I have sent you a package. (active voice, present perfect)
A package has been sent to you. (passive voice, present perfect)

 

[Anil Giria]

That is incorrect. Your rephrasing above was present perfect passive. The passive voice is indicated by a past participle following a form of the verb "to be".

I sent you a package. (active voice, past tense)
A package was sent to you. (passive voice, past tense)
I have sent you a package. (active voice, present perfect)
A package has been sent to you. (passive voice, present perfect)

I am bit confused. I understand "Have" is a form of the verb " to be" and sent is a past participle in "I have sent you a package. (active voice, present perfect)". Please clarify

 

[Matthew Wai]

I understand "Have" is a form of the verb " to be"

Where did you learn that?

 

[MikeNewYork]

"Have" is not a form of "to be".

 

[Matthew Wai]

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/verb-be

The verb 'to be' has the following forms: 'am', 'is', 'are', 'was', 'were' and 'been'.

 

[Anil Giria]

"Have" is not a form of "to be".

I understood that " Have" is not a form of "to be". Just to understand better, Can I conclude the following:

1) All passive voice sentences will be indicated by a past participle following a form of the verb "to be".

2) Form of the verb "to be" are as follow and these are the only "to be forms:

Is, Am, Are, Was, Were, been, Being.

3) Have been and Has been is not the "to be" form.

Please clarify. Thank you

 

[Matthew Wai]

3) Have been and Has been is not the "to be" form.

'Have been' and 'has been' are the present perfect, and 'been' is the past participle of 'be'.

 

[MikeNewYork]

2. You missed "be".

3. True, but "been" is.

 

[Anil Giria]

GET is also used to form passives: My father got/was run over yesterday.

Does it mean that there are exception to rule as mentioned in thread no 7?

 

[Anil Giria]

No.

Within the context of the thread up to that point, what Mike wrote was fine. Incidentally, he was not giving a 'rule'; he was telling you how the passive was formed with BE. He chose (rightly, in my opinion) not to complicate matters by mentioning that GET could also be used to form a passive. I mentioned it only because you used the word 'all' in post #13.

Understood. Just to conclude, Can I say that most of the passive voice are constructed with the rule as mentioned in thread no 7, but there may be a very few exception like "get".

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


I am concerned about learners who may be confused.

I have checked all the posts in this thread and no one, I believe, has corrected "The documents has ...." to "The documents have ...." in post #1.

I don't want beginning and intermediate students, in particular, to be misled.

 

[Barb_D]

The OP asked about "are" as his second question in the first post and Mike addressed it in the first reply.