(b) Bring up sentences with five transitive and five intransitive verbs.

VOICE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE.

[Sidenote:  Meaning of active voice.]

208.  As has been seen, transitive verbs are the only kind that can express action so as to go over to an object.  This implies three things,—­the agent, or person or thing acting; the verb representing the action; the person or object receiving the act.

In the sentence, “We reached the village of Sorgues by dusk, and accepted the invitation of an old dame to lodge at her inn,” these three things are found:  the actor, or agent, is expressed by we; the action is asserted by reached and accepted; the things acted upon are village and invitation.  Here the subject is represented as doing something.  The same word is the subject and the agent.  This use of a transitive verb is called the active voice.

[Sidenote:  Definition.]

209.  The active voice is that form of a verb which represents the subject as acting; or

The active voice is that form of a transitive verb which makes the subject and the agent the same word.

[Sidenote:  A question.]

210.  Intransitive verbs are always active voice.  Let the student explain why.

[Sidenote:  Meaning of passive voice.]

211.  In the assertion of an action, it would be natural to suppose, that, instead of always representing the subject as acting upon some person or thing, it must often happen that the subject is spoken of as acted upon; and the person or thing acting may or may not be expressed in the sentence:  for example,—­

     All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are
     speedily punished.  They are punished by fear.—­EMERSON.

Here the subject infractions does nothing:  it represents the object toward which the action of are punished is directed, yet it is the subject of the same verb.  In the first sentence the agent is not expressed; in the second, fear is the agent of the same action.

So that in this case, instead of having the agent and subject the same word, we have the object and subject the same word, and the agent may be omitted from the statement of the action.

Passive is from the Latin word patior, meaning to endure or suffer; but in ordinary grammatical use passive means receiving an action.

[Sidenote:  Definition.]

212.  The passive voice is that form of the verb which represents the subject as being acted upon; or—­

The passive voice is that form of the verb which represents the subject and the object by the same word.

Exercises.

(a) Pick out the verbs in the active and the passive voice:—­