passive with the model shall
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"When shall we meet?" is impossible to transform into passive voice. Why do you want to do that?
thanks for inquiring dear sir, is it possible to say: when shall we be met? according to the rule of forming the passive voice. have you ever said that?? no object here,yeah. I find it grammatically ok, my linguistic sense tells me it is all right. just I need a convincing answer to convince others who say it is not possible. thanks again.
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When shall we meet has "we" as the subject and no object. You cannot form a passive sentence without an object.
If you write "When shall we be met?" you do have a passive sentence, but "we" is now the recipient of the action. Someone else is meeting us.
When will they meet us? When shall we be met?
If you write "When shall we be met?" you do have a passive sentence, but "we" is now the recipient of the action. Someone else is meeting us.
When will they meet us? When shall we be met?
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When people meet, they meet each other. This can't be made passive because each subject is also an object already.
In other uses of 'meet' a passive is possible; for example, His question was met with silence.
b
In other uses of 'meet' a passive is possible; for example, His question was met with silence.
b
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And with regard to the original question, that could be used with the modal "shall":
I think his question shall (will) be met with silence.
I don't like it as a sentence but it's passive and contains the modal! :-D
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Nor do I
- and the OP should note that the word is 'modal'; and it's not just the spelling that changes!b
theeexcellence
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I personally believe that such a passive sentence is possible. i.e.
When shall we be met?
It means that we are not going to meet by ourselves, rather a third person/ party will cause us to/ make us meet and this passive sentence asks when that will happen.
"When shall we be met by them?" means "When will they cause us to meet?" (though it is a bit ironical that the two who are going to / want to meet are asking eachother or one is asking the other "When will they make us meet?")
In my humble opinion this sentence is right but we should avoid such construction since it causes obscurity.
NOT A TEACHER
thanks all,ur answers clarified the matter a bit. yet, just change this into the the passive: when shall we meet? . also,do plz clarify the state/role of the pronoun 'we' here. is it just a subject?or can it be the recipient of the action as well. thanx all again;-):up:
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You say that we have clarified this issue, but you are still asking someone to change "When shall we meet?" into the passive. It has already been explained that this is impossible. For a sentence to have an active and passive version, it must contain both a subject and an object. Your sentence does not contain an object. The sentence "When shall we meet the teacher?" does, and could be changed to "When shall the teacher be met by us?", but your original sentence cannot be changed into the passive.
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