Plain English Part 26

Past Perfect Progressive

_Singular_ _Plural_

1st. I had been seeing. We had been seeing.

2d. You had been seeing. You had been seeing.

3d. He had been seeing. They had been seeing.

+140.+ +The future perfect progressive describes an action which will be progressing at some future time. It is formed by using the future perfect time form of the verb _be_ and the present participle.+

Future Perfect Progressive

_Singular_ _Plural_

1st. I shall have been seeing. We shall have been seeing.

2d. You will have been seeing. You will have been seeing.

3d. He will have been seeing. They will have been seeing.

Exercise 1

In the following sentences mark all the progressive forms, and note whether they are present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect or future perfect.

1. The old order is pa.s.sing.

2. Men will be struggling for freedom so long as slavery exists.

3. The cla.s.s struggle has been growing more intense as wealth has acc.u.mulated.

4. The workers are realizing their power.

5. He had been talking for an hour when we arrived.

6. Next Monday I shall have been working for one year.

7. The workers will be paying interest on war debts for generations to come unless they repudiate.

8. While Marx was writing his books, he lived in abject poverty.

9. The Industrial Relations Commission has been investigating industrial conditions.

10. Ferrer was martyred because the Modern Schools were educating the people.

11. The nations of Europe had been preparing for war for many years.

ACTIVE AND Pa.s.sIVE

+141.+ Notice carefully the following sentences; select the subjects in these sentences which show _who_ or _what_ performed the action; select the subjects that show _who_ or _what_ receives the action. Do you notice any difference in the meaning of these sentences? Do you notice any difference in their form?

The engine struck the man.

The man was struck by the engine.

The system enslaves men.

Men are enslaved by the system.

Leaders often betray the people.

The people are often betrayed by leaders.

Let us look carefully at the first two sentences. You remember when we studied transitive verbs we found that every transitive verb had an _object_ which was the receiver of the action expressed in the verb. Now you notice in this first sentence, _The engine struck the man_, we have the transitive verb _struck_. _Engine_ is the subject of the verb and _man_ is the object of the verb, the receiver of the action expressed by the verb _struck_.

Now in the sentence, _The man was struck by the engine_, we have the same thought expressed but in a different manner. The word _man_, which was the object of the verb _struck_ in the first sentence, has now become the subject of the sentence, and we have changed our verb form from _struck_ to _was struck_. In the first sentence of the subject, _engine_ was the _actor_. In the second sentence, _The man was struck by the engine_, the subject of the sentence, _man_, is the _receiver_ of the action expressed in the verb.

+142.+ So we have thus changed the verb form from _struck_ to _was struck_ to indicate that the subject of the verb is the receiver of the action. _Struck_ is called the active form of the verb because the subject of the verb is the actor. _Was struck_ is called the pa.s.sive form of the verb because the subject receives the action. Pa.s.sive means _receiving_. In the pa.s.sive form the subject is the receiver of the action expressed in the verb.

+143.+ You remember that complete verbs have no object or complement, therefore it would follow that they cannot be put in the pa.s.sive form for there is no object to become the receiver of the action. Take the complete verb, _sleep_, for example. We do not _sleep_ anything, hence _sleep_ has no pa.s.sive form for there is no object which can be used as the subject, the receiver of the action.

+Only transitive verbs can be put into the pa.s.sive form.+ Remember that a transitive verb in the pa.s.sive form is one that represents its subject as receiving the action.

The present, past, future and all the perfect time forms of transitive verbs can be changed from active to pa.s.sive. The progressive time forms can be changed into the pa.s.sive, but it makes an awkward construction and should be avoided as much as possible. Occasionally, however, we find it worth our while to use these forms, as for example:

The book is being written by the man.

This is the pa.s.sive form of the present progressive, _The man is writing a book_.

The book was being written by the man.

This is the pa.s.sive form of the past progressive, _The man was writing the book_.

+144.+ The future progressive pa.s.sive is awkward, and the present and past progressive forms are the only forms we find used in the pa.s.sive.

The best writers use them sparingly for we can usually say the same thing by using the active form of the verb and have a sentence which sounds much better.

Exercise 2

All the verbs in the following sentences are _transitive_ verbs in the _active_ form. Rewrite each sentence, putting the verb into the _pa.s.sive_ form and making the _object_ of the _active_ verb the _subject_ of the _pa.s.sive_ verb; as, for example, the first sentence should be rewritten as follows:

_War on Russia was declared by Germany on August 1, 1914._

1. Germany declared war on Russia, August 1, 1914.

2. Who will sign the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation of the Proletariat?

3. Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto.

4. Spain murdered Francisco Ferrer, October 13, 1909.

5. We celebrate the first of May as International Labor Day.

6. The people of Paris stormed the Bastille, July 14, 1789.

7. Wat Tyler was leading the English workers in rebellion against the King when the Mayor of London stabbed him in 1381.

8. The Inquisition burned Bruno at the stake for heresy in 1600.

9. The Paris Commune followed the German siege of Paris in 1871.

SUMMARY

+145.+ Now let us take the verb _see_ and name all the time forms which we can describe with the changes in the verb forms which we have learned to make and also with the verb phrases which we can construct with the help of the verbs, _be_, _have_, _shall_ and _will_.

First, we want to express the present, what is happening now, and we want to put it in both the active and pa.s.sive forms, so we say:

+PRESENT TIME+

+Active+ +Pa.s.sive+