21 The passive
21.1 The structure of the Mandarin passive
In active sentences, the subject is typically the agent, the noun phrase that initiates the action,
and the object of the verb is the noun phrase affected by the action of the verb.
subject + verb + object
agent affected object他 偷走了 我的车。
他 偷走了 我的車。
Tā tōuzǒu le wǒ de chē.
He stole my car.
In Mandarin passive sentences, the affected noun phrase occurs as the subject of the verb, and
the agent occurs as the object of a passive marking preposition. As is typical with prepositional
phrases, the prepositional phrase occurs before the verb:subject + prepositional phrase + verb
C 14(^) note the exception is when the prepositional phrase indicates the location of the object as a result of the action
of the verb. In that case, the prepositional phrase follows the verb.
C14.1
Mandarin has three passive marking prepositions (passive markers): 被 bèi, 叫 jiào, and 让/讓
ràng, all of which may be translated with English ‘by.’
subject + passive NP + verb
affected NP agent
我的车 [被/叫/让] 他 偷走了。
我的車 [被/叫/讓] 他 偷走了。
Wǒ de chē [bèi/jiào/ràng] tā tōuzǒu le.
My car was stolen by him.
In passive structures, the word 给/給 gěi is sometimes placed before the verb.
那本字典 [被/叫/让] 小李 给借走了。
那本字典 [被/叫/讓] 小李 給借走了。
Nà běn zìdiǎn [bèi/jiào/ràng] Xiǎo Lǐ gěi jièzǒu le.
That dictionary was borrowed by Little Li.