Loading lesson...
Grammar
Objective: Draft professional executive statements that focus entirely on outcomes by using passive formatting and by omitting the agent.
| Tense | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| présent | être + participe | Le rapport est publié. |
| passé composé | avoir été + participe | Le rapport a été publié. |
| imparfait | être + participe | Le rapport était publié. |
| futur simple | être + participe | Le rapport sera publié. |
| conditionnel présent | être + participe |
The past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject, so the feminine plural subject requires the ending -es.
Verbs of habitual attitude such as respecter are frequently construed with de, while action verbs take par; the boundary is not strict and both prepositions occur.
The agent is omitted, and the sentence reports the outcome as an institutional fact.
The passive focuses on the decision itself, and no individual is named.
An action verb takes the agent introduced by par.
A verb of habitual attitude takes the agent introduced by de.
The future passive presents the outcome as a projected institutional decision.
7 exercises · about 11 minutes
| Le rapport serait publié. |
| subjonctif présent | être + participe | Il faut que le rapport soit publié. |
The passive requires the auxiliary avoir followed by été and the past participle, so the participle alone is not enough.
A passive clause with an omitted agent cannot end with the preposition par left dangling, since par must introduce the agent it announces.
The pronominal construction se vendre already covers the agentless habitual meaning, so adding an agent phrase reintroduces what the form was meant to leave out.
The subjunctive passive follows an expression of necessity.
The passive with no agent reads as an objective statement of policy.
The pronominal alternative expresses a habitual fact without naming an agent.