presentpassive

The present passive is a grammatical voice used to indicate that the subject of a sentence is the recipient of an action, rather than the performer. It foregrounds the event's result or the affected entity and is common in formal writing and object-focused discourse.

Formation in English relies on the present tense form of the auxiliary verb be and the past participle of the main verb. There are several present-tense passive constructions:

- Present simple passive: am/is/are + past participle (The letter is opened every morning.)

- Present continuous passive: am/is/are being + past participle (The letter is being opened right now.)

- Present perfect passive: has/have been + past participle (The letters have been opened already.)

- Present perfect continuous passive is rare and awkward, typically avoided in favor of simpler forms (The task has been ongoing; instead, The task has been completed).

In the present passive, the agent performing the action is often omitted. When it is mentioned, it is introduced with by (The report was written by the analyst). The passive is useful when the agent is unknown, unimportant, or deliberately de-emphasized, and it is prevalent in official, scientific, and instructional writing.

Differences from the active voice are primarily a shift in focus: the active voice highlights the doer, while the present passive highlights the action’s recipient or the action’s effect. The present passive can also express generalized truths or routine processes, such as The plant is watered daily.

Cross-linguistic note: many languages build passives differently or use alternative means (voice marking, impersonal constructions). English, however, relies on the be + past participle pattern for its present passive forms.