Complete passive voice
In one of my Spanish books on verbs, there's a section on the complete passive voice, which is commonly formed as
passive subject + ser + past-participle + por + agent of action
eg
El pájaro fue visto por ellos
The bird was sighted by them.
I wonder why this construct goes with ser, and not estar, as it seems to me this is a very transient state applied to the passive subject?
4 Answers
To bolster the argument the past participle in the construction is treated as an adjective (it shows concordance to the subject) which is normally associated with Estar rather than Ser and with states or situations.
But therein I think also lies the answer. It is the difference between the passive voice representing an action where estar in used with states or conditions.
This might help:
It is important to remember that the passive voice represents an ACTION as opposed to a state or a condition. Usually, one of two things is given or at least implied in the sentence to help indicate that an action is involved: 1) the agent (as stated above, introduced by “by” in English), or 2) the time at which the action took place. In other words, the sentence uses the passive voice (ser —and not estar— plus the past participle) if it answers the question ¿Quién lo hizo? / ¿Por quién fue hecho? or ¿Cuándo ocurrió? / ¿Cuándo fue hecho?.
One thing to point out is that the passive voice is not normally used with verbs of perception or emotion like: escuchar, oír, ver, querer, temer, odiar, etc. In these cases the passive reflexive voice is normally used along with the preposition "a" when you are referring to a specific person or animal - "Se vio al pájaro". However remember that with this construction the agent (ellos) cannot be mentioned. If this information is important you would use an active sentence: "Vieron al pájaro"
Hmm...I wonder...is passive present progressvie possible in Spanish?
The complete passive voice is always constructed with ser. Although I can't explain that grammatically, I can tell you that this, at least, is one usage where you don't ever have to worry about which of the two verbs to use.
Similarly, the present progressive - estar + gerund (están viendo los pájaros) - always uses estar. So there's another case where you don't have to worry about which to use.
Take those sure bets where you can find them!
