favorite
i'm unsure whether this sentence is active or passive voice.
i want to be there when the final match is played at wimbledon.
when we marked it, the teacher said that it was passive voice, but isn't the subject ("i") doing the action, which makes it active? can someone explain?
passive-voice
shareimprove this question
asked jun 13 '17 at 13: 39
amber
migrated from english.stackexchange.com jun 15 '17 at 6: 46
this question came from our site for linguists, etymologists, and serious english language enthusiasts.
2
it's not the matrix clause that is passive, but just the subordinate clause functioning as complement of "when", i.e. the final match is played at wimbledon. it's a 'short passive' in that there is no internalised complement (by phrase). the subject of the subordinate passive clause is "the final match". "i" is subject of the matrix clause. – billj jun 13 '17 at 15: 29
add a comment