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English passive voice

In English, the passive voice is marked by a subject that is followed by a stative verb complemented by a past participle. For example: "The enemy was defeated. Caesar was stabbed." The recipient of a sentence's action is referred to as the patient. In sentences using the active voice, the subject is the of the action—referred to as the agent. Above, the agent is omitted entirely, but it may also be included adjunctively while maintaining the passive voice: "The enemy was defeated by our troops. Caesar was stabbed by Brutus." The initial examples rewritten in the active voice yield: "Our troops defeated the enemy. Brutus stabbed Caesar." The English passive voice typically involves forms of the verbs to be or to get followed by a passive participle as the subject complement—sometimes referred to as a passive verb.

English allows a number of additional passive constructions that are not possible in many other languages with analogous passive formations to the above. A sentence's indirect object may be promoted to the subject position—e.g. Tom was given a bag. Similarly, the complement of a preposition may be promoted, leaving a stranded preposition—e.g. Sue was operated on.

The English passive voice is used less often than the active voice, but frequency varies according to the writer's style and the given field of writing. Contemporary style guides discourage excessive use of the passive voice but generally consider it to be acceptable in certain situations, such as when the patient is the topic of the sentence, when the agent is unimportant and therefore omitted, or when the agent is placed near the end of a sentence as a means of emphasis.

Identifying the English passive
The passive voice is a specific grammatical construction. The essential components, in English, are a form of the stative verb be (or sometimes get ) and the past participle of the verb denoting the action. The agent (the doer of the action) may be specified using a prepositional phrase with the preposition by, but this is optional. It can be used in a number of different grammatical contexts; for instance, in declarative, interrogative, and imperative clauses:
 * "Kennedy was assassinated in 1963."
 * "Mistakes were made."
 * "The window got broken."
 * "Have you ever been kicked by an elephant?"
 * "Don't get killed."
 * "Being attacked by Geoffrey Howe was like being savaged by a dead sheep."

Misuse of the term
Though the passive can be used for the purpose of concealing the agent, this is not a valid way of identifying the passive, and many other grammatical constructions can be used to accomplish this. Not every expression that serves to take focus away from the performer of an action is an instance of passive voice. For instance, "There were mistakes" and "Mistakes occurred" are both in the active voice. Occasionally, authors express recommendations about use of the passive unclearly or misapply the term "passive voice" to include sentences of this type. An example of this incorrect usage can be found in the following extract from an article from The New Yorker about Bernard Madoff (bolding and italics added; bold text indicates the verbs misidentified as passive voice): "Two sentences later, Madoff said, 'When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly, and I would be able to extricate myself, and my clients, from the scheme.' As he read this, he betrayed no sense of how absurd it was to use the passive voice in regard to his scheme, as if it were a spell of bad weather that had descended on him... In most of the rest of the statement, one not only heard the aggrieved passive voice, but felt the hand of a lawyer: 'To the best of my recollection, my fraud began in the early nineteen-nineties.'" The intransitive verbs would end and began are in fact ergative verbs in the active voice. Although the speaker may be using words in a manner that diverts responsibility from him, this is not being accomplished by use of passive voice.

Reasons for using the passive voice
The passive voice can be used without referring to the agent of an action; it may therefore be used when the agent is unknown or unimportant, or the speaker does not wish to mention the agent.
 * Three stores were robbed last night (the identity of the agent may be unknown).
 * A new cancer drug has been discovered (the identity of the agent may be unimportant in the context).
 * Mistakes have been made on this project (the speaker may not wish to identify the agent).

The last sentence illustrates a frequently criticized use of the passive, as the evasion of responsibility by failure to mention the agent (which may even be the speaker themselves).

Nonetheless, the passive voice can be complemented by an element that identifies the agent, usually via a by-phrase that is intended to emphasize the agent. For example:
 * Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his own doctor!

In more technical terms, such uses can be expected in sentences where the agent is the focus (comment, rheme), while the patient (the undergoer of the action) is the topic or theme (see Topic–comment). There is a tendency for sentences to be formulated so as to place the focus at the end, which can motivate the choice of active or passive voice:
 * My taxi hit an old lady (the taxi is the topic, and the lady is the focus).
 * My mother was hit by a taxi (the mother is the topic, and the taxi is the focus).

Similarly, the passive may be used because the noun phrase denoting the agent is a long one (containing many modifiers) since it is convenient to place such phrases at the end of a clause:
 * The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans, two researchers in the university's genetic engineering lab.

In some situations, the passive may be used so that the most dramatic word or the punchline appears at the end of the sentence.

Advice against the passive voice
Many language critics and language-usage manuals discourage use of the passive voice. This advice is not usually found in older guides, emerging only in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1916, the British writer Arthur Quiller-Couch criticized this grammatical voice: "Generally, use transitive verbs, that strike their object; and use them in the active voice, eschewing the stationary passive, with its little auxiliary its's [sic] and was's, and its participles getting into the light of your adjectives, which should be few. For, as a rough law, by his use of the straight verb and by his economy of adjectives you can tell a man's style, if it be masculine or neuter, writing or 'composition'."

Two years later, in the original 1918 edition of The Elements of Style, Cornell University Professor of English William Strunk, Jr. warned against excessive use of the passive voice: "The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive... This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice, which is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary... The need to make a particular word the subject of the sentence will often... determine which voice is to be used. The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action, but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard."

In 1926, in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Henry Watson Fowler recommended against transforming active voice forms into passive voice forms, because doing so "......sometimes leads to bad grammar, false idiom, or clumsiness."

In 1946, in the essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell recommended the active voice as an elementary principle of composition: "Never use the passive where you can use the active."

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English states that:

"Active voice makes subjects do something (to something); passive voice permits subjects to have something done to them (by someone or something). Some argue that active voice is more muscular, direct, and succinct, passive voice flabbier, more indirect, and wordier. If you want your words to seem impersonal, indirect, and noncommittal, passive is the choice, but otherwise, active voice is almost invariably likely to prove more effective." Use of the passive is more prevalent in scientific writing, but publishers of some scientific publications, such as Nature, Science and the IEEE, explicitly encourage their authors to use active voice.

The principal criticism against the passive voice is its potential for evasion of responsibility. This is because a passive clause may be used to omit the agent even where it is important:
 * We had hoped to report on this problem, but the data were inadvertently deleted from our files.

Krista Ratcliffe, a professor at Marquette University, notes the use of passives as an example of the role of grammar as "......a link between words and magical conjuring...: passive voice mystifies accountability by erasing who or what performs an action..."

Advice by style guides and grammarians on appropriate use of the passive voice
Jan Freeman, a columnist for The Boston Globe, said that the passive voice does have its uses, and that "all good writers use the passive voice."

Passive writing is not necessarily slack and indirect. Many famously vigorous passages use the passive voice, as in these examples with the passive verbs italicized:
 * Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. (King James Bible, .)
 * Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York. (Shakespeare's Richard III, I.1, ll. 1–2.)
 * We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (United States Declaration of Independence.)
 * Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. (Winston Churchill addressing the House of Commons, 20 August 1940.)
 * Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. (Franklin D. Roosevelt's Infamy Speech following the Attack on Pearl Harbor.)
 * For of those to whom much is given, much is required. (John F. Kennedy's quotation of Luke 12:48 in his address to the Massachusetts legislature, 9 January 1961.)

While Strunk and White, in The Elements of Style, encourage use of the active voice, they also state that the passive is often useful and sometimes preferable, even necessary, the choice of active or passive depending, for instance, on the topic of the sentence.

Another advisor, Joseph M. Williams, who has written several books on style, states with greater clarity that the passive is often the better choice. According to Williams, the choice between active and passive depends on the answers to three questions: Bryan A. Garner, in Garner's Modern English Usage, stresses the advantages of the active voice, but gives the following examples of where the passive is preferred: Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage recommends the passive voice when identifying the object (receiver) of the action is more important than the subject (agent), and when the agent is unknown, unimportant, or not worth mentioning: The linguist Geoffrey Pullum writes that "The passive is not an undesirable feature limited to bad writing, it's a useful construction often needed for clear expression, and every good writer uses it."
 * 1) "Must the reader know who is responsible for the action?"
 * 2) "Would the active or passive verb help your readers move more smoothly from one sentence to the next?
 * 3) "Would the active or passive give readers a more consistent and appropriate point of view?"
 * "When the actor is unimportant."
 * "When the actor is unknown."
 * "When you want to hide the actor's identity."
 * "When you need to put the punch word at the end of the sentence."
 * "When the focus of the sentence is on the thing being acted on."
 * "When the passive simply sounds better."
 * The child was struck by the car.
 * The store was robbed last night.
 * Plows should not be kept in the garage.
 * Kennedy was elected president.

Despite criticism that the passive can be used to hide responsibility by omitting the agent, the passive can also be used to emphasize the agent. Writers have preferred placing the agent at the end of a clause or sentence to give it greater emphasis, as in the examples given in the previous section:
 * Don't you see? The patient was murdered by his own doctor!
 * The breakthrough was achieved by Burlingame and Evans, two researchers in the university's genetic engineering lab.

Actual use of the passive voice
Agentless passives were once common in scientific writing, where the agent may be irrelevant, although at least one publisher considers this a "fading practice":
 * The mixture was heated to 300 °C.

The passive voice is used more frequently in scientific writing than in other prose, where it is relatively rare.

A statistical study of a variety of periodicals found a maximum incidence of 13 percent passive constructions. Despite Orwell's advice to avoid the passive, his Politics and the English Language employs passive voice for about 20 percent of its constructions.

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English gives the following rough frequencies per million words:

In academic prose, passives make up roughly 25% of all finite clauses, 15% in news, less in fiction, and even less in conversation.

Canonical passives
In the most commonly considered type of passive clause, a form of the verb be (or sometimes get) is used as an auxiliary together with the past participle of a transitive verb; that verb is missing its direct object, and the patient of the action (that which would be denoted by the direct object of the verb in an active clause) is denoted instead by the subject of the clause. For example, the active clause: contains threw as a transitive verb with John as its subject and the ball as its direct object. If we recast the verb in the passive voice (was thrown), then the ball becomes the subject (it is "promoted" to the subject position) and John disappears: The original subject (the agent) can optionally be re-inserted using the preposition by.
 * John threw the ball.
 * The ball was thrown.
 * The ball was thrown by John.

The above example uses the verb be (in the past tense form was) to make the passive. It is often possible to use the verb get as an alternative (possibly with slightly different meaning); for example, the active sentence "The ball hit Bob" may be recast in either of the following forms:
 * Bob was hit by the ball.
 * Bob got hit by the ball.

The auxiliary verb of the passive voice (be or get) may appear in any combination of tense, aspect and mood, and can also appear in non-finite form (infinitive, participle or gerund). See the article on English verb forms for more information. Notice that this includes use of the verb be in progressive aspect, which does not normally occur when be is used as a simple copula. Some examples:
 * The food is being served. (present progressive passive)
 * The stadium will have been built by next January. (future perfect passive)
 * I would have got/gotten injured if I had stayed in my place. (conditional perfect passive with get)
 * It isn't nice to be insulted. (passive infinitive)
 * Having been humiliated, he left the stage. (passive present participle, perfect aspect)

Promotion of indirect objects
Unlike some other languages, English also allows passive clauses in which an indirect object, rather than a direct object, is promoted to the subject. For example:
 * John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book (by John).

In the active form, gave is the verb; John is its subject, Mary its indirect object, and a book its direct object. In the passive forms, the indirect object has been promoted and the direct object has been left in place. (In this respect, English resembles secundative languages.)

It is normally only the first-appearing object that can be promoted; promotion of the indirect object takes place from a construction in which it precedes the direct object (i.e. where there is no to or for before the indirect object), whereas promotion of the direct object in such cases takes place from a construction in which the indirect object follows the direct object (this time being accompanied by to or for; see ). For example: Similar restrictions apply to the prepositional passive, as noted in the following section.
 * John gave Mary a book. → Mary was given a book. (and not normally: ??A book was given Mary.)
 * John gave a book to Mary. → A book was given to Mary. (and not: *Mary was given a book to.)

Prepositional passive
It is also possible, in some cases, to promote the object of a preposition. This may be called the prepositional passive, or sometimes the pseudopassive (although the latter term can also have other meanings, such as being equivalent to the impersonal passive voice, particularly in descriptions of other languages). In the passive form here, the preposition is "stranded"; that is, it is not followed by an object.
 * They talked about the problem. → The problem was talked about.

The prepositional passive is common, especially in informal English. However some potential uses are much less acceptable than others; compare the following examples: The second sentence appears much less acceptable because sleeping above a bunk does not change its state; the verb phrase been slept above does not express a "relevantly important property" of the bunk.
 * Someone has slept in this bottom bunk. → This bottom bunk has been slept in. (fully acceptable)
 * Someone has slept above this bottom bunk. → ??This bottom bunk has been slept above. (much less acceptable)

It is not usually possible to promote a prepositional object if the verb also has a direct object; any passive rendering of the sentence must instead promote the direct object. For example:
 * Someone has put a child in this bunk. → *This bunk has been put a child in. (unacceptable)
 * Someone has put a child in this bunk. → A child has been put in this bunk. (acceptable)

Exceptions occur with certain idiomatic combinations of verb+object+preposition, such as take advantage of:
 * I feel people have taken advantage of me. → I feel I have been taken advantage of. (acceptable)

Stative and adjectival uses
A type of clause that is similar or identical in form to the passive clauses described above has the past participle used to denote not an action, but a state being the result of an action. For example, the sentence The window was broken may have two different meanings and might be ambiguous:
 * The window was broken, i.e. Someone or something broke the window. (action, event)
 * The window was broken, i.e. The window was not intact. (resultant state)

The first sentence is an example of the canonical English passive as described above. However the second case is distinct; such sentences are not passive voice, because the participle is being used adjectivally; Such constructs are sometimes called "false passives" or stative passives (rarely called statal, static, or resultative passives), since they represent a state or result. By contrast the canonical passives, representing an action or event, may then be called dynamic or eventive passives.

The ambiguity in such sentences arises because the verb be is used in English both as the passive auxiliary and as the ordinary copular verb for linking to predicate adjectives. When get is used to form the passive, there is no ambiguity: The window got broken cannot have a stative meaning. (For ways in which some other languages make this distinction, see .) If a distinct adjective exists for the purpose of expressing the state, then the past participle is less likely to be used for that purpose; this is the case with the verb open and the adjective open, so the sentence The door was opened (but not the package was unopened) more likely refers to the action than to the state since one can simply say The door was open in the stative case.

Past participles of transitive verbs can also be used as adjectives (as in a broken doll), and the participles used in the above-mentioned "stative" constructions are often considered to be adjectival (in predicative use). Such constructions may then also be called adjectival passives (although they are not normally considered true passives). For example: Here, relieved is an ordinary adjective, though it derives from the past participle of relieve. In other sentences that same participle may be used to form the true (dynamic) passive: He was relieved of duty.
 * She was relieved to find her car.

When the verb being put into the passive voice is a stative verb anyway, the distinctions between uses of the past participle become less clear, since the canonical passive already has a stative meaning. (For example: People know his identity → His identity is known.) However it is sometimes possible to impart a dynamic meaning using get as the auxiliary, as in get known with the meaning "become known".

Passive constructions without an exactly corresponding active
Some passive constructions are not derived exactly from a corresponding active construction in the ways described above. This is particularly the case with sentences containing content clauses (usually that-clauses). Given a sentence in which the role of direct object is played by such a clause, for example It is possible to convert this to a passive by promoting the content clause to subject; in this case, however, the clause typically does not change its position in the sentence, and an expletive it takes the normal subject position:
 * They say (that) he cheats.
 * It is said that he cheats.

Another way of forming passives in such cases involves promoting the subject of the content clause to the subject of the main clause, and converting the content clause into a non-finite clause with the to-infinitive. This infinitive is marked for grammatical aspect to correspond to the aspect (or past tense) expressed in the content clause. For example:
 * They say that he cheats. → He is said to cheat.
 * They think that I am dying. → I am thought to be dying.
 * They report that she came back / has come back. → She is reported to have come back.
 * They say that she will resign. → e.g. She is said to be going to resign.

Some verbs are used almost exclusively in the passive voice. This is the case with rumor, for example. The following passive sentences are possible: but it is not possible to use the active counterpart *They rumored that he was a war veteran. (This was once possible, but has fallen out of use.)
 * He was rumored to be a war veteran. / It was rumored that he was a war veteran.

Another situation in which the passive uses a different construction than the active involves the verb make, meaning "compel". When this verb is used in the active voice it takes the bare infinitive (without the particle to), but in the passive voice it takes the to-infinitive. For example:
 * They made Jane attend classes.
 * Jane was made to attend classes.

Double passives
The construction called double passive can arise when one verb appears in the to-infinitive as the complement of another verb.

If the first verb takes a direct object ahead of the infinitive complement (this applies to raising-to-object verbs, where the expected subject of the second verb is raised to the position of object of the first verb), then the passive voice may be used independently for either or both of the verbs: Other verbs which can behave similarly to expect in such constructions include order, tell, persuade, etc., leading to such double passives as The man was ordered to be shot and I was persuaded to be ordained.
 * We expect you to complete the project. (you is raised from subject of complete to object of expect)
 * You are expected to complete the project. (passive voice used for expect)
 * We expect the project to be completed. (passive voice used for complete; now the project is raised to object)
 * The project is expected to be completed. (double passive)

Similar constructions sometimes occur, however, when the first verb is raising-to-subject rather than raising-to-object – that is, when there is no object before the infinitive complement. For example, with attempt, the active voice construction is simply We attempted to complete the project. A double passive formed from that sentence would be: with both verbs changed simultaneously to the passive voice, even though the first verb takes no object – it is not possible to say *We attempted the project to be completed, which is the sentence from which the double passive would appear to derive.
 * The project was attempted to be completed.

This latter double passive construction is criticized as questionable both grammatically and stylistically. Fowler calls it "clumsy and incorrect", suggesting that it springs from false analogy with the former (acceptable) type of double passive, though conceding its usefulness in some legal and quasi-legal language. Other verbs mentioned (besides attempt) with which the construction is found include begin, desire, hope, propose, seek and threaten. Similarly, The American Heritage Book of English Usage declares this construction unacceptable. It nonetheless occurs in practice in a variety of contexts.

Additional passive constructions
Certain other constructions are sometimes classed as passives. The following types are mentioned by Pullum.

A bare passive clause is similar to a typical passive clause, but without the passive auxiliary verb (so it is a non-finite clause consisting of a subject together with a verb phrase based on a past participle with the passive construction). These can be used in such contexts as newspaper headlines: and as modifiers (adverbial phrases), i.e. nominative absolutes:
 * City hall damaged by hail
 * Our work done, we made our way back home.
 * That said, there are also other considerations.

Other constructions are mentioned in which a passive past participle clause is used, even though it is not introduced by the auxiliary be or get (or is introduced by get with a direct object):
 * I had my car cleaned by a professional.
 * Jane had her car stolen last week.
 * You ought to get that lump looked at.
 * This software comes pre-installed by the manufacturer.

In the concealed passive, the present participle or gerund form (-ing form) appears rather than the past participle. This can appear after need, and for some speakers after want (with similar meaning). For example: (An idiomatic expression with the same construction is ...doesn't bear thinking about.)
 * Your car needs washing. (meaning "needs to be washed")
 * That rash needs looking at by a specialist.

The concealed passive (with an -ing form) can also be used in a complex construction; Huddleston gives the following example: See also.
 * Your hair needs cutting by a professional. [simple construction]
 * You need your hair cutting by a professional. [complex construction]

Syntactic components of the passive voice
The sections below discuss some generalizations that linguists have attempted to identify regarding the syntactical distinctions between the passive voice, active past tense, the passive middle voice, and other past tense formations.

The passive participle
In English, the passive requires the use of the past participle of a verb, generally with an auxiliary verb be. The passive uses an auxiliary be in order to get tense because participles are non finite. The participle verb is also unable to assign Case. Case is a tool used in transformational grammar that states that Case gives grammatical relations to a noun to show how it functions in the sentence; for example, if a noun needs to be in first or second person due to the form of the  verb. So, if a noun phrase in the passive needs to get Case from the participle verb, it must undergo movement to the head of the sentence CP to receive nominative Case.ii

Wanner argues that identification of the passive voice construction can't solely rely on the auxiliary be and the past participle as distinguishing features because the auxiliary be is also used to express the progressive aspect and the past participle can be found in multiple constructions that are not passive voice constructions. In these instances Wanner refers to, the auxiliary be is not found next to or with the past participle. If the auxiliary be is present directly in front of a past participle, it is a passive construction.

External argument, implicit argument and theta roles
Passives always contain an external argument. An external argument is specifically referring to the theta role that is assigned to the subject of the sentence. Often, the external argument is the agent of the sentence. In passive constructions, the external argument does not need to be in subject position, as seen in active constructions. It is often found in an adjunct position instead. The passive voice also doesn't have to use the agent role. The passive allows for a variety of thematic roles in the external argument. For example, the subject could have a theta role of goal instead, as in the sentence below.

 * I was sent a letter by them.

In the passive, external arguments can be made explicit in adjunct positions with the use of a by phrase. They don't have to be put into argument positions in order to be specific. The external argument in the passive will be represented even without a by phrase.

When a by phrase is missing in the passive, the external argument of the verb can become an implicit argument. Implicit here refers to the fact that these arguments can be implied and are not required to be explicit when used in a passive construction.

Control and arguments
Explicit arguments can control a PRO subject within an adjunct purpose clause using thematic control. PRO can also be controlled by an internal or external argument. Specifically, explicit and implicit arguments can control PRO in purpose clauses:

 * Theyi sold the books [PROi to make profit].

Above, they is the controller for PRO, and PRO is referencing that they are the ones who did it to make the profit. In this case, the explicit argument of the sentence is they. In the passive, arguments can even control a PRO subject without having an explicit external argument, because it is still there implicitly.

 * The books were sold IMPi [ PROi to make money].

Above, IMP is the reference to PRO because the books didn't sell themselves to make money, someone, who the interpreter of the sentence knows exists implicitly, sold them. In the passive, PRO is still able to be controlled even without having an explicit argument.

Control abilities can also be limited with implicit arguments in the passive. An implicit subject cannot control PRO in the case of ditransitive and subject control verbs. This is related to passive movement. Due to the raising done to get nominative case, the head T is no longer in an Agree relationship with the implicit subject, which means that the implicit subject can no longer control PRO either.

 * Sarah was promised (by Gregi) [PROi to go on a vacation.]

In the passive, the thematic object can be the controller because it is still connected in agreement.

 * Sarahi was persuaded [PROi to go on vacation].

Some suggest that the ability to control is due to implicit arguments controlling through a thematic control, rather than an argument control like full arguments.

By phrases in the passive
Another feature of the passive is the optional by phrase. The by phrase is where the external argument can be explicitly expressed. This by phrase acts as an adjunct to the verb and is assigned theta roles that would normally be assigned elsewhere in the sentence, specifically it takes the theta role of the active subject.

 * Toni ate the last piece of baklava. (active)
 * The last piece of baklava was eaten [by Toni]. (passive)

In the passive, the theta role of agent is being given to Toni in the by phrase, the same as it previously had in the active subject. These by phrases are attached to the VoiceP head and are special to passives.

Movement in the passive
In Chomsky's generative grammar, the following example of a passive with the auxiliary be and a by phrase, gives the same reading as in an active sentence.

 * Zenobia idolized Caesar. (active)
 * Caesar was idolized by Zenobia. (passive)

Caesar which acted as the direct object in the active form, as the internal argument, moves from the direct object of the verb into the subject position in the passive for two reasons. The first reason is to satisfy the EPP (extended projection principle) and then second is to get Case, since in its participle form, the verb cannot give Case to Zenobia. Zenobia receives nominative Case from the finite INFL, the head of the CP.

Movement does not always take place in the passive though we see it often with by-phrases. This is because movement only takes place when a NP depends on the verb to get Case. There are instances of the passive that do not use movement.

Non-passivized verbs
Not all verbs in English can be passivized.

Unaccusative verbs do not form a passive in English.

 * * It was wilted quickly.

In the passive the external argument is suppressed, but in unaccusative verbs, there is no external argument to be suppressed. Instead their subject argument generally acts as the object and then moves to the subject position to get Case. In the example above, you can see that the subject it moved from the object position to the subject. This is demonstrated in the trace below, where the trace (ti) is left behind when the word it moves to the front of the sentence into subject position where it receives case.

 * [CP [TP[VP was wilted quickly[DP it]]]].
 * [CP[TP Iti [VP was wilted quickly[DP ti]]]].

English also does not have impersonal passives, even though this can be found in other languages, like Dutch or German.

One argument using the lens of cognitive grammar claims that this is due to how auxiliary be functions in the passive. ii With the auxiliary be, the passive needs to have a patient argument. Unergative verbs that would form an impersonal passive do not have a patient argument, so the passive can't be formed. In Dutch, the be verb functions differently, so that the agent is always present. Therefore, in Dutch, the passive doesn't require a patient argument.

Another view is that it has to do with Case. Specifically, the inability of intransitive verbs to assign Case. Since intransitive verbs do not have objects, they don't assign Case. If the verb can't assign Case, then Case cannot be obtained by the passive; so they can't be passivized. This view claims that in German and Dutch, the verbs are structural case assigners which is why they are able to passivized in those languages.

Another Case-related argument varies slightly, still agreeing that no passive can be formed since the verb has no object, meaning no case can be assigned. However, the difference in this argument is in the analysis of how the impersonal passive works in Dutch and German. In this Case-related argument, Roberts (1985) claims that German and Dutch use dative case, argued to be an inherent Case (this is from Chomsky's generative grammar and means that specific verbs assign specific arguments and theta-roles) on their verbs, meaning these verbs can be put in the passive.

The reasons certain verbs cannot be passivized is not just based on syntax; there are semantic reasons behind their inability to passivize as well.

Get passive
Originally the get passive was viewed as another variation of the be passive in English. It was assumed to function the exact same as the be passive, just using the verb get in place of auxiliary be. Today this is a topic of discussion among linguists who have noted that there are key differences between the behavior of a be passive and a get passive.

Control and agent behavior in get passives
Some claim that the get passive is considered a subject control verb, a construction where the unstated subject is forced to refer back to the subject of the main clause by the verb.

[Ellei got PROi hired ti]

Above, PRO has to refer to Elle, making it a subject control verb. The be passive does not allow for subject control. The patient in the get passive is often seen as being to blame for the event or action occurring, more so than in the be passive. The get passive patient seems to take on more responsibility in relation to the event of the sentence.

Mary got arrested.

Mary was arrested.

In the get passive version, there is some implied amount of accountability for being arrested, as if Mary did something to cause her being arrested, making it more closely related to the event of being arrested, compared to the stative be passive which doesn't connect back to the event, but is stative. This is because in get passives there is a belief that the surface subject can be identified as a secondary agent, but this is not an available reading in the be passive.

Arguments as an adjectival passive
Some linguists argue that the get passive is actually an adjectival passive, making it not a true passive and different from be.

Evidence for the get passive as an adjectival passive comes from examples where get passives are not allowed to appear and do not behave as be passives, which are demonstrated below:

Agent-Oriented Manner Adverbials

*The book got torn on purpose.

Rationale Clauses

*The ship got sunk [PRO/ec) to collect the insurance money].

Predication Structures

*The food (finally) got served [(PRO/ec) kneeling].

Reflexive Pronouns

*Food should never get served only for oneself.

However, there are instances where the above examples have a get passive that is allowed in the types of constructions above, and a be passive that is not. Furthermore, get passives allow the use of the by-phrase in the same conditions as the be passive.

The criminal got arrested by Mary.

This is something that usually isn't seen with true adjectival passives. These notions put the idea that the get passive may be an adjectival passive under question.

Middle voice and passival
The term middle voice is sometimes used to refer to verbs used without a passive construction, but in a meaning where the grammatical subject is understood as undergoing the action. The meaning may be reflexive: but is not always:
 * Fred shaved, i.e. Fred shaved himself
 * These cakes sell well, i.e. [we] sell these cakes [successfully]
 * The clothes are soaking, i.e. [the water] is soaking the clothes

Such verbs may also be called passival.

Another construction sometimes referred to as passival involves a wider class of verbs, and was used in English until the nineteenth century. Sentences having this construction feature progressive aspect and resemble the active voice, but with meaning like the passive. Examples of this would be: A rare example of the passival form being used in modern English is with the following phrase: This passival construction was displaced during the late 18th and early 19th century by the progressive passive (the form is being built as given above). The grammaticality of the progressive passive, called by some the "imperfect passive," was controversial among grammarians in the 19th century, but is accepted without question today. It has been suggested that the passive progressive appeared just to the east of Bristol and was popularized by the Romantic poets.
 * The house is building. (modern English: The house is being built)
 * The meal is eating. (modern English: The meal is being eaten)
 * The drums are beating, i.e. the drums are being beaten

title: English passive voice


text:
Volusian of Tours

Volusian (Volusien) (Volusianus) was the seventh Bishop of Tours, from 491 to 498. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.

Biography
Volusian came from a rich and pious senatorial family, and was a close relative of his predecessor Perpetuus, as well as of Ruricius of Limoges. He was deprived of his see by the Visigoths, exiled to Toulouse, and perhaps martyred.

His feast day is January 18. He is the patron saint of Foix.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Volusian of Tours


text:
House of Bamboo

House of Bamboo is a 1955 American film noir shot in CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color, directed and co-written by Samuel Fuller, and starring Robert Ryan. The other co-screenwriter was Harry Kleiner. The cinematographer was Joseph MacDonald.

Plot
In 1954, a military train guarded by American soldiers and Japanese police is robbed of its cargo of guns, ammunition, and smoke bombs. During the robbery, a U.S. Army sergeant guarding the train is shot and killed. Five weeks later, a thief named Webber lies dying in a Tokyo hospital, shot by one of his own cohorts during a holdup in which smoke bombs were used. U.S. Army investigators discover Webber was shot by the same P38 pistol that killed the sergeant during the train robbery. Webber is questioned by military and police investigators, who discover among his possessions a letter from an American named Eddie Spanier, who wants to join Webber in Japan after his release from a U.S. prison. Though Webber refuses to implicate his fellow gang members, he does reveal that he is secretly married to a Japanese woman named Mariko Nagoya.

Three weeks later, Eddie arrives in Tokyo and makes contact with Mariko, gaining her trust with a photograph of himself taken with Webber, and learns about Webber's death. Mariko admits that Webber made her swear to keep their marriage a secret; she did not know about his criminal life and never sought help from the police out of fear that she could be targeted by his killers. Later, Eddie goes to a pachinko parlour, attempting to sell "protection" to the manager. But when he tries to shake down another parlour, he is beaten by a group of Americans led by racketeer Sandy Dawson, who is so intrigued with Eddie's audacity that he later arranges for him to join his gang, a group of disgruntled former American servicemen who have been dishonourably discharged. After being accepted into the gang, Eddie secretly meets with U.S. and Japanese investigators, for whom he is actually working undercover. To solidify his cover, Eddie asks Mariko to live with him as his "kimono girl." Hoping to discover who killed Webber, Mariko consents to Eddie's offer. In the meantime, Sandy grows to trust Eddie and even saves his life when Eddie is wounded during a robbery, surprisingly disregarding his own rule to leave wounded gang members for dead.

Eddie finally informs Mariko of his real identity – he is actually U.S. Army Sergeant Edward Kenner and is working as an undercover infiltrator into the Dawson gang. Mariko pledges to continue to assist Eddie in his investigation. When Charlie, one of Sandy's men, spies Mariko meeting with an American army officer to fill him in on the details of the Dawson gang's next heist, he notifies Sandy, and the job is thus aborted. However, an outside informant Ceram, reveals to Sandy that (a) the police are poised to capture him and that (b) Eddie is a military plant. Sandy thus sets up Eddie's death with a fake robbery; he has Charlie knock Eddie unconscious and props him as the shop robber so that he will be shot by the police; but that plan backfires when Charlie is shot while trying to keep Eddie upright. Sandy is chased by the police and a recovered Eddie to a rooftop amusement park. After an intense gunfight, Eddie shoots and kills Sandy. The film ends with Eddie and Mariko being reunited.

Cast

 * Robert Ryan as Sandy Dawson
 * Robert Stack as Sgt. Edward Kenner (posing as Eddie Spanier)
 * Shirley Yamaguchi as Mariko Nagoya-Webber
 * Cameron Mitchell as Griff
 * Brad Dexter as Capt. Hanson
 * Sessue Hayakawa as Insp. Kita (dubbed by Richard Loo)
 * DeForest Kelley as Charlie
 * Biff Elliot as Webber
 * Sandro Giglio as Ceram
 * Elko Hanabusa as the screaming Japanese woman
 * Harry Carey Jr as John (Arms Supplier)

Background
The narration at the film's beginning tells the viewer that the film was photographed entirely on location in Tokyo, Yokohama, and the Japanese countryside. At the movie's end, an acknowledgments credit thanks "the Military Police of the U.S. Army Forces Far East and the Eighth Army, as well as the Government of Japan and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department" for their cooperation with the film's production.

The film was one of a number of 20th Century Fox movies produced by Buddy Adler being shot on location in Asia around this time. Others included Soldier of Fortune, The Left Hand of God, and Love is a Many Splendored Thing. It was the second CinemaScope Fox film that Samuel Fuller made for the studio. Fuller, Stack, and Yamaguchi arrived in Japan on 26 January 1955.

Critical response
The staff of Variety magazine wrote of the film, "Novelty of scene and a warm, believable performance by Japanese star Shirley Yamaguchi are two of the better values in the production. Had story treatment and direction been on the same level of excellence, House would have been an all round good show. Pictorially, the film is beautiful to see; the talk's mostly in the terse, tough idiom of yesteryear mob pix."

Film critic Keith Uhlich believes the film is an excellent example of wide-screen photography. He wrote in a review, "Quite simply, House of Bamboo has some of the most stunning examples of widescreen photography in the history of cinema. Traveling to Japan on 20th Century Fox's dime, Fuller captured a country divided, trapped between past traditions and progressive attitudes while lingering in the devastating aftereffects of an all-too-recent World War. His visual schema represents the societal fractures through a series of deep-focus, Non-theatrical tableaus, a succession of silhouettes, screens, and stylized color photography that melds the heady insanity of a Douglas Sirk melodrama (see, as an especial point of comparison, Sirk's 1956 Korea-set war film Battle Hymn) with the philosophical inquiry of the best noirs."

For many years after its initial release, the film was seen only on television in pan-and-scan prints, leading people to believe that DeForest Kelley has a small role near the end of the film. When Fox finally struck a new 35mm CinemaScope print for a film festival in the 1990s, viewers were surprised to see that Kelley is in the film all the way through; he was just always off to one side and thus had been panned out of the frame.

References in other films
A scene from House of Bamboo (in which Robert Ryan kills Cameron Mitchell while Mitchell is in a Japanese bathtub) is briefly shown prominently in the 2002 film Minority Report, when Tom Cruise (as Anderton) visits the squalid eye clinic. The scene actually echoes the plot of Minority Report and anticipates what happens next (or what is supposed to happen next): Mitchell is killed while not being responsible of what Ryan accuses him of; symmetrically, Mike Binder (as Leo Crow) is supposed to be killed by Anderton/Cruise, when Binder/Crow did not actually commit the crime Anderton/Cruise thinks he did (kidnapping and killing his son). Thus, the screening of that scene indicates that Anderton/Cruise would kill an innocent, and will fall into a trap.

title: House of Bamboo


text:
Talk:Judeo-Marathi

Article dev.
Ok, can anyone else contribute to this article? I've already contributed the sum total of my knowledge on this subject. Gringo300 13:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I'll contribute a bit. More when time permits.  Tomer TALK  07:49, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I've done some research on Indian languages in general (in this case I mean Indian as in India, of course, but i've also done some research on American Indian languages).

I really don't know enough about "standard" Marathi to know how different Judeo-Marathi is from it.

One of my life goals is to learn to speak, read, and write as many languages as possible.

Let's just say I'm not a big fan of the English-only movement... well, actually, it's more like I despise it with every fiber of my being.

Gringo300 03:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A good number of translations from Hebrew were copied (in manuscript) printed in Marathi particularly in Pune, in the latter half of the 19th century. These include famous translations of the Passover Haggadah. There are two bibliographies on Jewish printers in India (which include the Jewish [Judeo-?] Marathi works):

Yaari, Abraham, 1899-1966. Ha-Defus ha-`Ivri be-artsot ha-mizrah. Yerushala[y]im, ha-Hevrah le-Hotsa'at sefarim `al yad ha-Universitah ha-`Ivrit, 697-700 [1936-40].

Astren, Fred. The Jewish printed book in India : imprints of the Blumenthal Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Berkeley, Calif. : Judah L. Magnes Museum, 1992.

However, the lists of imprints are still not complete.

Finally, if it is possible to distinguish/classify a Judeo-Marathi from other Marathi varieties, then it needs to be added to the "Jewish Languages" right column under "Other Indo-European".

jerchower

Hoax...
Well i've lived at Alibag, India the town that had been historically populated by Bene Israelis, even today there are many Bene Israelis living in and around the town, i dont think their Marathi is any different from the dialect spoken by the local non-jewish populance. 50-60 Hebrew additions hardly constitutes a separate language. अमेय आर्यन DaBroodey 00:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

 * It looks like I'm going to have to do some more research on the Marathi language. Gringo300 09:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

 * In my knowledge, the description “a form of Marathi” is the most precise one. It is indeed not a separate language, but deserves an article as a particular type of Marathi. -- Olve 21:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

 * With the minor change into “... a form of Marathi ...”, the issue of possible hoax should be dealt with. I propose that someone remove the tag now. -- Olve 21:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a Hoax
Just go to the Ethnologue: http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=MRT for the Marathi entry! Imperial78

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Redirect discussion
The article was redirected to Marathi in April after a proposal was made by @Saimdusan. I've undone the revision and decided to contest it here.

The current convention among scholars of Jewish language varieties is to use the term "Judeo-X" to describe a language variety. "Judeo-X" terms are not used to describe linguistically distinct languages or dialects, but rather a sociolinguistic designation to describe and compare the ways Jewish communities adopt and use local languages (see Benjamin and Benor, 2019, page 3). This convention is used by scholars who study Jewish language varieties and by other pages on Wikipedia (see List of Jewish diaspora languages). While the page is in need of work (something I'm happy to contribute to) it certainly does not merit deletion. So, I oppose any deletion or redirect. too_muchcuriosity (talk) 07:02, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

 * You are correct in saying that Judaeo-x is a term with currency in the literature and is used to refer to language varieties that show varying levels of distance from related non-Jewish speech forms (so yes, how different the sociolect or dialect in question is from equivalent non-Jewish speech varieties is irrelevant to the validity of the term).
 * However, my contention in proposing the article for deletion was not that Jewish sociolectal variation does not merit coverage on Wikipedia or that the term Judaeo-Marathi would be invalid if such a sociolect only presented minor variation from the speech of Marathi-speaking Hindus.
 * Rather, the issue is whether this particular variety is actually attested or described in any pertinent literature.
 * The only two sources given by the article as it stands are 1) an entry for a manuscript in a library catalogue and 2) a defunct journalistic text that does not discuss anything about the alleged language variety at all. Not only are these texts not valid sources for the claims being made on the face of it (a library catalogue entry and a news story on MSN are hardly linguistics literature), but they also do not contain many of the claims made in the article (such as "Judeo-Marathi is written in the Devanagari script" or "it is characterized by a number of loanwords from Hebrew and Aramaic").
 * The only valid source on the usage of Marathi-speaking Jews I have found is the following, which would indicate that this variety is at best unattested, if it indeed ever existed at all.
 * "There is no evidence that the Marathi used by Jews was any different from that of their non-Jewish neighbors."
 * Rubin, AD, Kahn, L. 2020, Jewish Languages from A to Z, Taylor & Francis.
 * As it stands, the article is a case of original research and does not relay anything found in valid sources. You are welcome to try to dig up sources that could attest to this language variety actually existing, but given that we have been waiting for 3 years and I have also come up empty-handed, I am not convinced that anything will surface.
 * I believe the best course of action is to delete the article entirely so that we are not spreading misinformation. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 08:38, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to clarify that while I do have certain personal misgivings about the Judaeo-x terminology for unrelated language varieties that show disparate levels of distinctiveness from related gentile speech forms, it does exist in the literature and it is not my place (and certainly not within the context of Wikipedia) to change it. Rather, my argument here is based on whether this particular article accurately reflects its sources, or whether there are any sources at all on the language use of Marathi-speaking Jews that would indicate any differences from other religious groups, not whether the terminology would hypothetically be valid (as it would be) if this sociolect actually existed. saɪm duʃan Talk|Contribs 10:10, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying! I think you correctly identified a gap: Judeo-Marathi is not directly described in any secondary literature. That being said, Judeo-Marathi is referenced by several sources (such as Hary and Bunin Benor and Rubin and Kahn) and, as you mentioned, there is a manuscript in the British library containing Judeo-Marathi written in Hebrew script. Even Ruben, the author of the source you cite, uses the term "Judeo-Marathi" a number of times.
 * The article needs to be cleaned up, but I think it should remain given the references to Judeo-Marathi in other texts. The current article is certainly misleading, but I wouldn't consider the inclusion of an article called "Judeo-Marathi" to be disinformation if it correctly represents the current literature. I will clean it up now. Let me know what you think after I clean it up. too_muchcuriosity (talk) 01:30, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Judeo-Marathi


text:
Moss Kent Dickinson

Moss Kent Dickinson (June 1, 1822 – July 19, 1897) was a Canadian businessman, mayor of Ottawa from 1864 to 1866, Member of Parliament from 1882 to 1887 and the founder of Manotick.

Background
He was born in Denmark, New York in 1822 to parents Barnabus and Lydia Dickinson. A descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, the Dickinson family had been settled in the United States for generations. His family moved to Cornwall, Ontario in 1827. By 1847, he had established a business transporting goods on the Rideau Canal between Ottawa and Kingston. By 1850, Moss owned 16 steamers and 60 barges. Locals started to call him the 'King of the Rideau'.

Dickinson saw promise on Long Island in the middle of the Rideau River. He purchased seven acres of land in the town he named Manotick. Dickinson chose the name 'Manotick' from the Algonquin word for 'island'.

Career
In 1860, with Joseph Merrill Currier, he completed construction of the Long Island Flouring Mill in Manotick, Ontario. He also built a sawmill, carding mill and bung factory. This served as the economic basis for the formation of the village. The grist mill is today called Watson's Mill and is open to the public as a museum.

Moss Kent Dickinson applied to five Order-in-Councils during his life. His son, George Dickinson, applied to two. The Orders-in-Councils were either about a lease of water power or for timber limits. The timber grants were in the North-West Territories. The timber grants provided additional income for the Dickinsons. John A. Macdonald signed Moss Kent Dickinson's and George's Orders-in-Council. It was more of a standard procedure of the Prime Minister than an indicator of a specific benevolence extended towards the family. Wilfrid Laurier had signed George's last Order-in-Council dated March 31, 1903. George had applied for a grant of water bulkheads to Long Island.

Politics
Dickinson served as mayor of Ottawa from 1864 to 1866. Under his leadership, the Ottawa City Passenger Railway was incorporated. It was the first public transit system in Ottawa. The system consisted of horse-drawn tramcars that rode on iron rails.

Dickinson was also elected in the riding of Russell in the 1882 federal election. (Dickinson was the last non-Liberal MP for Russell County until Pierre Lemieux was elected in 2006, a span of 124 years.) His son George Lemuel also served in the House of Commons.

Connection to Sir John A. Macdonald
Macdonald visited Manotick once, on February 10, 1887. He gave a speech at the large hall over Dickinson's lumber mill. Macdonald mentioned that he was "happy to meet his constituents in Manotick." He had dinner at the Dickinson's residence afterwards. Their conversations were brief, as Macdonald left that night to return to Ottawa.

Patronage was a key theme in Dickinson's relationship with Macdonald. This was prominent in their correspondence. It spanned through many years, with the first letter in 1863 and the last in the year of Macdonald's death, 1891. The 28 years of correspondence yielded only 38 letters. Dickinson wrote 31 of them and Macdonald wrote 7. Most of the letters were about appointments or political favours for him or his friends.

Family
Together with his wife Elizabeth, Dickinson had five children: George, Charlotte, William, Lydia and Elizabeth. He also had another son, Alpheus, who died in infancy. Lydia died at age 15 of tuberculosis. None of Dickinson's children ever married, leaving him with no descendants.

Legacy
He died in Manotick in 1897. Dickinson is buried in Beechwood Cemetery beside his wife. Dickinson Days are celebrated in Manotick on the first weekend in June, to coincide with Dickinson's birthday.

title: Moss Kent Dickinson


text:
Ryan Zimmerman

Ryan Wallace Zimmerman (born September 28, 1984) is an American former professional baseball infielder who spent his entire 17-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Washington Nationals. Zimmerman graduated from Kellam High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and played college baseball at the University of Virginia. Nicknamed "Mr. National", he was selected in the first round as the fourth overall pick by the Nationals in the 2005 MLB draft and then played for the team from its 2005 inaugural season in Washington, D.C., through 2021. Known for his clutch hitting and walk-off hits, Zimmerman was primarily a third baseman before moving to first base in 2015. He was twice selected as an MLB All-Star, won one Gold Glove and two Silver Slugger awards, and was a World Series champion with the 2019 Nationals.

Amateur career
Before college, Zimmerman played on an AAU team with B.J. Upton and David Wright. As a high schooler in 2000, he played on a "showcase team" with Wright, Mark Reynolds, and B.J. and Justin Upton.

Zimmerman played high school baseball as a shortstop at Floyd E. Kellam High School in Virginia Beach. Until late in his senior year, James Madison, Charlotte, and UNC Wilmington were the only Division I programs to show interest in him. He later received a scholarship offer from Virginia.

The Virginia native spent his 2003 summer with the Peninsula Pilots. He batted a team-best .331 with 47 hits, including eight doubles, a triple and a homer. He finished with 19 RBIs, 12 runs scored, 60 total bases, and 16 walks. Zimmerman's hits, total bases, and slugging percentage (.423) were Pilots team-highs that season. He was later named to the North CPL All-Star team, where he went 1-for-2. In 2006, the Coastal Plain League honored Zimmerman as a member of its All-Decade Team.

A three-year starting third baseman for the Virginia Cavaliers in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Zimmerman started in all 174 games he appeared in, and his collegiate career statistics include 250 hits, 140 RBIs, 128 runs, 47 doubles, seven triples, and nine home runs. He was successful on 32 of 39 stolen base attempts. His career totals are among the top ten in Virginia statistical categories for doubles (5th), hits (6th), and RBI (7th). Zimmerman established the school record of hits in a season with 90 in 2004, then broke his record with 92 in 2005.

In his final collegiate season, Zimmerman led the Cavaliers with a .393 average, .581 slugging percentage, 136 total bases, 92 hits, 59 RBIs, and 51 runs. He struck out just 14 times in the full season. Through August 2011, he was one of 29 former UVA players to have made it to the major leagues, along with Michael Schwimer, Javier López, and Mark Reynolds.

Zimmerman's collegiate awards and honors include 2005 All-American by Baseball America, 2005 All-American by National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, 2005 All-ACC selection, 2005 ACC All-Tournament, Team and 2005 Virginia College Sports Information Directors (VaSID) Player of the Year. He was also a 2004 First Team All-ACC selection, 2004 VaSID All-State Team selection, and named to the 2004 Charlottesville NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team.

International baseball
Zimmerman started at third base for the 2004 USA Baseball National Team that won the gold medal in the FISU II World University Baseball Championship. Zimmerman's summer with Team USA included starting 18 of 24 games and leading the team in batting average (.468), hits (36), RBI (27), runs (25), doubles (12), home runs (4), slugging percentage (.805) and total bases (62). He also posted a .933 fielding percentage and won the team Triple Crown. In his sophomore year in college he batted over .400 in the 9th inning with 2 runners on base.

Zimmerman's .468 batting average set a national team single-season record and helped him earn the World University Championship tournament MVP.

He won the USA Baseball Richard W. "Dick" Case Player of the Year Award in 2004.

2005 season
Zimmerman was drafted in the first round as the fourth overall pick by the Washington Nationals in the 2005 Major League Baseball Draft. After being signed on the day he was drafted, he was sent to the Savannah Sand Gnats, the Nationals' minor league A-level affiliate and then quickly moved up to the Harrisburg Senators, the AA affiliate.

Zimmerman was called up to the majors when rosters expanded in September 2005. He first played shortstop for two games, taking over for an injured Cristian Guzman. Zimmerman also shared third base duties with Vinny Castilla, taking over the position on a more permanent basis between the time the Nationals were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention and the end of the season. In his first major league at bat at RFK Stadium he muscled a double to left center. Over the course of 20 games, he posted a .397 batting average, 10 doubles, and 6 RBIs in 58 at-bats. He was the only member of the 2005 team to hit over .300 in at least 50 at-bats.

2006 season
He remained with the Major League club to start the 2006 campaign, taking over third base duties from Castilla, who was traded to the San Diego Padres. Prior to 2006 Spring Training, Zimmerman changed his jersey number from #25 (2005) to #11, his former college number.

On April 5, 2006, he hit his first Major League home run off a 93-mph fastball in the ninth inning against Mets' closer Billy Wagner. It sailed into the second deck in Shea Stadium, tied the game in the top of the ninth inning, and allowed the Nationals to go on to win their first game of the 2006 season by a score of 9–5 in extra innings.

On June 18, 2006, Father's Day, with his father in the stands, Zimmerman hit his tenth Major League home run and his first walk-off home run when he hit a 2-run shot in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the New York Yankees 3–2. The usually stoic Zimmerman gleefully tossed his batting helmet in the air while rounding third and leaped onto home plate as his teammates crowded around him. He later took a curtain call and tossed his batting gloves into the stands.

On July 4, 2006, he hit a 3-run home run against Florida closer Joe Borowski on a two-strike pitch with two outs in the 9th inning of a game Washington was losing 4–3; the walk-off home run carried Washington to a 6–4 victory. This was Zimmerman's 12th career home run and his second walk-off. Two days later he delivered a walk-off single against the Marlins to win the game 8–7 in the 11th inning.

On September 27, 2006, against the Philadelphia Phillies, Zimmerman hit his 20th home run of the season and tied the Expos/Nationals franchise record for home runs by a rookie, set by Brad Wilkerson for the then-Expos in 2002

During his first season as the Nationals' third baseman, Zimmerman became a hometown hero and a fan favorite through his defense and ability to come through in late-inning situations. Frank Robinson once compared Zimmerman's defense to that of Brooks Robinson, a former teammate of Frank Robinson's. During the 2006 spring training, Frank Robinson said that he thought 12 homers and 60 RBIs would be a realistic goal for his rookie infielder; Zimmerman exceeded those expectations and finished with 20 home runs and 110 RBIs. Along with those two figures, he finished the 2006 season with 156 games played, 612 at-bats, .288 batting average, .352 OBP, 84 runs scored, 176 hits, 47 doubles, 3 triples, and 11 steals. He led all Major Leaguers with 10 or more bunts in bunt hit percentage, at 83.3% with 10 bunt hits. Although he was named on more ballots (29–27), Zimmerman finished second in the 2006 NL Rookie of the Year voting to Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramírez in the closest Rookie of the Year vote ever.

2007 season
On a game that began on May 12, 2007, but ended at 1:42 am the next day (Mother's Day), Zimmerman hit a two-out bottom-of-the-ninth grand slam to rally the Nationals past the Florida Marlins, 7–3.

On June 22, 2007, Zimmerman fielded a routine ground ball that ended up in his jersey. As he bent over to underhand the ball at his stomach level, his jersey top opened and hung down in front of his glove, causing the ball to go into his jersey instead of his positioned glove.

On July 4, 2007, Zimmerman hit a two-out go-ahead home run in the first inning against the Chicago Cubs. The one-run home run would have been considered routine had it not continued a trend that led to Zimmerman being declared a "human fireworks" show by an ESPN.com article. The Independence Day home run marked Zimmerman's fifth game-ending or go-ahead home run on a holiday. Zimmerman hit home runs on Father's Day in 2006 and 2007, Independence Day in 2006 and 2007, and Mother's Day in 2007. Per ESPN.com, Zimmerman was quoted as saying, "I wish every day was a holiday."

On August 3, 2007, Zimmerman delivered his sixth walk-off game-winner in his first two seasons with a single to left, giving the Nationals a 3–2 win over the visiting St. Louis Cardinals. With another walk-off in September, Zimmerman produced seven walk-offs with three via home run, three via singles, and one via bases-loaded walk, in less than two seasons. Manager Manny Acta stated, "He has done some dramatic stuff since he's been up here...he doesn't get rattled when that situation comes up, and I think that's what he has shown here the last two years." Subsequent to the game, Zimmerman was presented the 2006 Larry Doby Legacy Award for his achievements during his rookie season.

On August 4, 2007, Zimmerman had his first career multi-homer day, hitting a solo shot in the fourth and a two-run homer in the sixth in a 12–1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

in 2007, Zimmerman was one of 7 players to play in all 162 games of the season. He slashed .266/.330/.458 and set a career high in home runs with 24.

In November 2007 during the offseason Zimmerman participated in a homerun derby fundraiser for Grassfield High School in Chesapeake, Virginia. Participants included Michael Cuddyer who won the derby, Justin Upton, B.J. Upton, David Wright, and Mark Reynolds (baseball); all of whom are from the Hampton Roads area. Zimmerman broke his wrist and could not complete the derby and required surgery prior to the 2008 season.

2008 season
On March 30, the Washington Nationals played the Atlanta Braves in the first regular season major league baseball game in the new Nationals Park. In that game, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Zimmerman hit a walk-off home run off of the Braves' Peter Moylan, giving the Nationals a 3–2 win. It was the first home run hit by a Nationals player in the history of their new ballpark. Zimmerman was placed on the disabled list on June 3, 2008, with a small labral tear in his left shoulder. He rejoined the team July 22, 2008, after a short minor league assignment. On February 20, 2009, Zimmerman agreed to a $3.325 million, one-year deal for 2009, avoiding arbitration.

2009 season
On April 20, 2009, Zimmerman signed a five-year, $45 million contract with the Nationals through the 2013 season, replacing the one year, $3.325 million contract he had agreed to in February in order to avoid arbitration. He hit safely in 30 consecutive games, the longest such streak by any player since 2006. That streak was broken May 13 against the Giants, going 0-for-3 with two walks in five plate appearances; he hit into a fielder's choice in his last at-bat. His streak of reaching base (via hit or walk) in 43 consecutive games ended on May 26. On July 5, 2009, he was selected to his first All-Star Game. On September 6, 2009, he hit a walk-off two-run homer against the Florida Marlins to give the Nationals a 5–4 win. On November 11, 2009, he won a Gold Glove Award as the best defensive third baseman in the National League, and on November 12, 2009, he won a Silver Slugger Award as the best offensive third baseman in the league. Zimmerman also won a Fielding Bible Award as Major League Baseball's best fielding third baseman. He also won the ESPN Web Gems Award, which is given to the player with the most Top 10 plays on the "Baseball Tonight" show, the first player given that award.

2010 season
Zimmerman hit his 100th career home run on May 30, 2010, at Petco Park, becoming the second player to reach this milestone from the 2005 draft class. He homered a second time in the same game, the 7th multi-homer game of his career. For the season, Zimmerman hit 25 home runs, 85 RBIs, and had his first .300 batting average with .307. On November 11, 2010, Zimmerman won his second Silver Slugger Award at third base.

2011 season
Zimmerman started off the season hot, batting .357 through April 9. On that day Zimmerman was injured, and on April 11 was placed on the 15-Day DL with an abdominal strain. It wasn't until June 14 that the Nationals star 3rd baseman came back to play against the Cardinals. As of July 9, Zimmerman was hitting .252, with 4 homers and 15 RBIs, with 15 runs scored and 1 stolen base. On August 19, 2011, Zimmerman hit a walk-off grand slam to give the Nationals an 8–4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Zimmerman won the 2011 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award.

2012 season
On February 26, 2012, Zimmerman signed a 6-year, $100 million extension that ran through 2019 and included a $24 million club option for 2020. His extension also included a full no-trade clause, effective 2014. Zimmerman had previously set a deadline of the day before to sign an extension. With this contract, Zimmerman was set to earn $12 million in 2012; $84 million from 2013 to 2018 at $14 million annually; $18 million in 2019; and in 2020, either $18 million if the Nationals picked up his option or $2 million if they bought him out. After retirement, he would earn $10 million more over the course of five years while working for the club. If the Nationals were to trade him before his no-trade clause took effect, he would earn an additional $8 million. Zimmerman could make as little as $126 million or as much as $150 million over the full life of the contract.

On April 27, the Nationals placed Zimmerman on the 15-day Disabled List with shoulder inflammation, retroactive to April 21. He returned May 6.

Zimmerman struggled early in the 2012 season due to shoulder pain, hitting only .218 with 3 home runs in his first 55 games. He received a cortisone injection on June 24 to mitigate the pain, with apparent results: in his next 25 games, he hit .392 with 11 home runs and 28 RBI. He brought his OPS up from .590 to .801. For his much-improved performance by mid-July, Zimmerman was awarded the NL Player of the Week.

Zimmerman would make his first appearance in the postseason in 2012 as a result of the Nationals winning the National League East and he hit .381/.364/.714 with home runs in Games 2 and 5 of the 2012 National League Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. However, the Cardinals went on to eliminate the Nationals in 5 games.

2013 season
Zimmerman underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder in the off-season to repair the scar tissue that had bothered him in 2012. He spent much of the winter rehabilitating it to get ready for the season, although his doctors estimate he may not regain full strength in it until June. On May 29 Zimmerman had the first three home run game as the Nationals lost to the Orioles 9–6. On July 26, 2013, Zimmerman hit his ninth career walk-off home run against the Mets. He completed the season batting .275 with 26 home runs, 79 runs batted in, and 6 stolen bases over a total of 147 games played.

2014 season
After returning from an injury and with Anthony Rendon playing well at third base, Zimmerman played left field for the Nationals. On June 24, three weeks after returning, Zimmerman hit a 2-run home run in the 16th inning against the Milwaukee Brewers. Zimmerman, playing left field, caught the final out to what as at the time the longest game by innings in Nationals history.

After the season, the Nationals declined the option of first baseman Adam LaRoche, with the intention of Zimmerman moving to first base in 2015 due to his many shoulder injuries, with Rendon taking over as the starting third baseman.

2015 season
On May 19, 2015, Zimmerman hit his 10th career walk-off home run, ranking him third all time in National League walk-off home runs. On September 4, Zimmerman hit two home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, the second of which was his 200th career home run. Zimmerman was on the disabled list from June 11 to July 28 with plantar fasciitis, which was the first of 3 times in his career that he would be placed on the disabled/injured list due to that injury. Overall, he played in 86 games and hit 16 home runs with 73 RBI and had a .773 OPS

2016 season
On May 15, 2016, Zimmerman hit his first career inside-the-park home run. Outfielders Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton violently collided into each other going after the ball that was hit to the right-center field warning track, and both fell to the ground on the outfield warning track. Zimmerman had two separate stints on the disabled list in 2016, he missed about three weeks in July due to a left rib cage strain and missed two weeks in August due to a left wrist contusion. For the season, Zimmerman slashed .218/.272/.370 for a .642 OPS, by far his worst numbers across a season in each stat, and hit 15 home runs with 46 RBI in 115 games.

2017 season
Zimmerman enjoyed a major offensive return to form during the 2017 season, and he was voted onto the National League All-Star roster as the starting first baseman, his first selection to the All-Star Game since 2009.

On April 29, Zimmerman hit a 470-foot homer, marking the longest ever hit at Nationals Park. On July 17, Zimmerman hit his 235th career home run, setting a new Nationals/Expos franchise record. On July 27, Zimmerman hit the fourth consecutive home run by Nationals hitters off Milwaukee Brewers starter Michael Blazek, the first time the feat had been accomplished in Major League Baseball since the 2011 season.

On August 9, Zimmerman set the Nationals' franchise record for most runs batted in, earning his 906th RBI on a solo home run against the Miami Marlins. He finished the night by going 4 for 4 with two home runs and 5 RBIs. On August 11, he tied his career high for RBIs in a game, with six, during a contest against the Chicago Cubs in which he also hit two home runs, both coming off of Cubs starter Jon Lester.

Zimmerman ended the regular season with a career high 36 homers, with 108 RBI and a .303 batting average over 144 games played. He also set career highs in SLG (.573) and OPS (.930).

In the 8th inning of Game 2 of the 2017 National League Division Series, Zimmerman hit a go-ahead 3-run home run that would end up being the eventual game winner. However, the Nationals lost the series to the defending champion Chicago Cubs in 5 games and were eliminated in the NLDS for the 4th time in a 6 year span. Zimmerman went 3-22 (.150) in the series.

Zimmerman was awarded the 2017 Players Choice Award Comeback Player of the Year Award.

2018 season
Zimmerman missed nearly half of the 2018 season due to an oblique injury. He batted .264/.337/.486 with 13 home runs in 85 games.

On July 31, Zimmerman recorded his 1,695th career hit, passing Tim Wallach for first place on the Nationals franchise's all-time list for career hits. On August 22, Zimmerman hit his 11th career walk-off home run against the Philadelphia Phillies off Seranthony Dominguez. That home run put him in a three-way tie with Tony Perez and David Ortiz for the 8th most walk-off home runs of all time.

2019 season
On July 5, 2019, Zimmerman hit his 1000th career RBI with a 7th inning double off of Kevin McCarthy against the Kansas City Royals. In 2019 Zimmerman batted .257/.321/.415 with six home runs and 27 RBIs in 171 at bats.

Zimmerman was on the injured list from April 28 to June 28 and from July 23 to September 1, both times due to plantar fasciitis in his right foot

In 2019, the Nationals made the playoffs as the first National League Wild Card team and in the Wild Card Game on October 1 against the Milwaukee Brewers, Zimmerman hit a crucial pinch hit single in the 8th inning against Josh Hader as part of a rally to help the Nationals win the game and advance to the next round.

In the 2019 National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Zimmerman hit a 3-run home run in Game 4 that extended a 1-run lead and secured the win. The Nationals won the series in 5 games and advanced past the NLDS for the first time in franchise history.

In the 2019 National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Zimmerman went 4-16 (.250) with 2 doubles and 2 RBIs to help the Nationals sweep the Cardinals and advance to the World Series for the first time in franchise history. In the 8th inning of Game 1, Zimmerman made a diving catch that temporarily preserved a no-hitter for Nationals pitcher Anibal Sanchez, although Sanchez did allow a hit later in the inning and lost the no-hit bid.

On October 22, 2019, in his first career World Series at bat, he hit the first World Series home run in Nationals franchise history. The Nationals would go on to win the 2019 World Series in 7 games and Zimmerman to earn his first World Series championship. He went 5–22 (.208) with one home run and two RBI in the Series; in the entire 2019 postseason, Zimmerman went 14–55 (.255) with two homers, three doubles, and 7 RBI.

2020 season
The Nationals declined to exercise an $18 million club option for Zimmerman for the 2020 season, making Zimmerman a free agent for the first time in his career. On January 28, 2020, Zimmerman signed a one-year, $2 million contract to return to the Nationals. On June 29, 2020, Zimmerman decided to opt out of playing in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While it was the first Nationals season without Zimmerman playing a regular season game, he had played in six 2020 spring training games in a Nats uniform before the league-wide shutdown due to the pandemic.

2021 season and retirement
On January 23, 2021, Zimmerman re-signed with the Nationals on a one-year, $1 million contract. On May 22, Zimmerman passed Hall of Famer Tim Raines for most runs scored in Nationals/Expos franchise history. On August 12, Zimmerman passed Tim Wallach for the most games played in Nats/Expos franchise history.

Questions regarding Zimmerman's possible retirement began to circulate towards the end of the season, with Zimmerman himself "unsure" about his playing future. Zimmerman would ultimately start at first base on October 3, the final game of the season; he was then removed in the 8th inning, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd at Nationals Park.

On February 15, 2022, Zimmerman announced his retirement. He retired as the franchise (both the Nationals and Expos) all-time leader in many statistical categories including hits (1846), home runs (284), RBI (1061), and games played (1799). He also holds many Nationals records (2005-present) such as fWAR (38.6), as well as the all-time Washington, D.C baseball record for home runs and RBI (includes the first and second iterations of the Washington Senators and the present-day Nationals, but excludes the Expos).

On March 21, 2022, the Nationals announced that they would retire Zimmerman's number 11, making him the first Nationals player to receive that honor. The ceremony took place on June 18, the 16th anniversary of his first career walk-off home run. Upon his retirement, Zimmerman remained a part of the Nationals organization, as he had a 5 year, $10 million personal services contract with the team as a part of his 6 year, $100 million contract extension in 2012.

Personal life
Zimmerman's mother, Cheryl, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995 and has needed to use a wheelchair since 2000. Zimmerman has cited his mother's condition as a substantial formative influence on his development, saying that it forced him to grow up and assume responsibilities at an earlier age than most children. He also founded the ziMS Foundation, which is dedicated to treating and curing multiple sclerosis.

Zimmerman became engaged to Heather Downen, a tech-firm sales representative, in April 2012, and they married in January 2013. The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, in November 2013. Their second daughter was born in June 2016. Their third child, a son, was born in May 2020. They reside in Great Falls, Virginia.

Al Jazeera controversy
On January 5, 2016, it was announced that Zimmerman had filed a lawsuit suing Al Jazeera for defamation following the publication's release of the documentary "The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers", which linked Zimmerman and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, among others, to a clinic that allegedly distributed steroids and HGH.

title: Ryan Zimmerman