34 Passive Voice: Agent

The Passive Form expresses the idea of something or someone receiving an action or experiencing a particular event or effect. {see Passive Structure, B1 level}

Agent represents the person or a thing that performs the action, subject of an active sentence.

In passive sentence Agent is not mentioned explicitly. However; they can be mentioned by a prepositional phrase beginning with ‘by’.

The structure of the sentence is as follows:
Passive Clause + by + agent.

Passive Voice sentences can be recast into the active voice with the agent in the subject position.

• Hamlet is written by William Shakespeare.
• This beauty salon is run by a woman from New Zealand.
• The house was affected by earthquake.

Passive Voice sentences are mostly not followed by the Agents, however an Agent is most frequently expressed when it is:

• The proper name of an artist, inventor, discoverer, innovator;
• An indefinite noun phrase conveying new information;
• An unexpected inanimate noun.