passive sructure

Question

Hola

I wonder whether we use ser or estar to make passive form.

I saw the following sentence in lesson 3.12

Las joyas son vendidas en esta tienda.

And I wonder if I can use the verb estar in this sentence?

Is it correct to say Las joyas están vendidas en esta tienda.?

Muchas gracias

Very interesting question :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 24, 2011

Answer 1

Well your question made me find out something interesting as I was really only familiar with the passive voice using ser.

El libro fue escrito por Cervantes. etc

But apparently there are two passive voices.

Process passive; formed with ser - like it's name suggests it describes a process.

and

Status passive; formed with estar - also, as it's name suggest, it describes a state rather than a process.

This link gives the following examples:

Status passive

El está bautizado. = He is baptised.

He has the status of being baptised. It is not known and not said
anything about the process of him being baptised.

Process passive

El es bautizado. = He is (being) baptised.

This sentence is about the process that he is baptised.

To me I think because I'm used to seeing estar used in the present progressive this seems to be the opposite. Ser being used to talk about the action/process and estar used to talk about the result/state, so I think it's going to take a bit for me to get my head around it properly, lol.

I have only recently started to see estar being used before a past participle when referring to a 'result' so this does help add to my understanding - so .... thanks for asking the question. I hope my research helps you too

much easier to see if you get past the grammar jargon. http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/COURSES/passive.htm Estar used with situations and conditions. Ser with actions. - 0074b507, Dec 24, 2011

Answer 2

After looking in the references Ser and Estar I discovered that with passive form we use the verb Ser. So please do not bother yourselves answering this question.

Saludos