Passive form of a sentence that has "promise to [verb]"


Sentence:



The manufacturer promises to repair or replace the product if necessary within warranty period



I want to convert the above sentence into passive. Is either of the following sentences the correct passive form?



  1. The product was promised by the manufacturer to repair or replace if necessary within warranty period

  2. The product was promised to be repaired or replaced if necessary within warranty period by the manufacturer


I feel like sentence 2 is the right one, but that is my feeling as I am not sure.


For sentence 1, I only changed "promise" to passive form while for sentence 2, I changed all of "promise," "repair" and "replace" into passive form.


So, can you tell me what is the right way to change the above sentence to passive form?



Answer




The manufacturer promises to repair or replace the product if necessary within warranty period.



Here, the manufacturer is the subject of promises, repair and replace.


If you only change one verb to the passive like this:



The product was promised by the manufacturer to repair or replace if necessary within warranty period.



You have introduced a problem in your sentence. The subject of the sentence is now the product, and repair and replace now also have the product as their subject. But the product will not repair or replace itself!


You have to change all the verbs to correspond with the subject, as you did in your second sentence:



The product was promised to be repaired or replaced if necessary within warranty period by the manufacturer.



You could change part of the sentence to passive like this



The manufacturer promised (that) the product would be repaired or replaced if necessary within warranty period by the manufacturer.



This sounds more natural than the fully passive version of sentence 2.


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