The basic structure of a sentence consists of the subject, object, and verb. The verb describes the action of the subject. When the subject is an action, there are two types of verb tenses: active and passive. Active is the active form of a verb, and passive is the passive form of a verb. There is also some irregular verb tenses in Spanish.
In a sentence, the subject is always the subject of the verb, but sometimes it doesn’t need to be. Some examples of subjects are “you,” “him/her,” “it,” “this,” “that,” and “we.” But not every subject is suitable as the subject of a verb. For instance, a sentence like “I am not eating” is grammatically incorrect, because the subject of the sentence cannot be the person who is eating, and therefore cannot be the subject of a verb.
Sometimes you will also see the subject of a sentence after the sentence’s verb, as in “The book is not yet read.” This form of the verb “to be” is known as the auxiliary verb, and can also appear after the main verb. “The book was not yet read” has the subject of the first clause after the main verb.
In this passive form, the subject of the verb is implied as the indirect object. However, when the verb of the sentence is active, it is implied as the direct object. In a passive sentence, the main clause of the verb expresses the action of the subject, and the indirect clause describes that same action. When the main clause of the verb is not used, the indirect clause is implied.
Many passive sentences have a third clause between the main clauses, which is known as the modal clause. This clause is typically used when the meaning of the main clauses is ambiguous and serves to establish the meaning of the main clauses.
Most passive sentences contain two forms of the verb, as well as some forms of the past tense of the active sentences. {i.e. Examples of these are “was not seen”, “heard, been heard, had been heard”. In these sentences, “he/she/it/they was not seen” means, “has not been seen”, “he/she/it/they have heard” means “heard it”, “he/she/it/they have been heard” means “has been heard”, and “she/it/they have been heard” means “he/she/it has been heard”. This pattern is called “paradoxical” in Spanish. In this kind of sentence, a sentence like “he/she/it has been heard” is grammatically true, but the meaning of the sentence becomes ambiguous when the subject is said without the verb “heard.”
Passive sentences are important, because they help to structure the flow of the sentences. In Spanish, passive sentences are not required to express any meaning, so the order of the sentences is determined by the verb that is not active. The passive sentences are usually in the third person, and in most cases the passive verb can take either the past or the future tense of the active verb.
Some important rules of grammar in passive sentences are that: in Spanish, the active subject of the verb is the subject of the main clause of the verb; the passive subject of the verb is the indirect object; and the passive subject of the verb is implied, because the subject of the verb is implied in the first person. A sentence in the passive mode cannot introduce an absolute clause and cannot end with a preposition or conjunction. The most common tense for passive sentences is the past, since the verb has no past tense. In this tense, the subject is always in the present tense, and is in the active voice.
The most important feature of passive sentences is that they are very simple. The passive form shows a clear pattern in the use of words and the number of words in the sentence. For example: “He/she/it/they/he/she/it has not seen” means “I/he/she/it/they/he/she/it has not seen “he/she/he/it/they had not seen” means “he/she/it/they/he/he/she has not seen “they/he/he/it/they had seen” means “they/he/she/it/they had seen”.
Passive sentences are important and make the language more understandable for readers. They show that the writer is using basic words, and that there is no attempt to complicate the meaning of the sentence by introducing the sense of more complex concepts.
