grammar - What is the passive voice of "She quits her teaching job in school"?


What will be the passive voice for "She quits her teaching job in school"? I have come up with "The teaching job in school is quit by her," but somehow it's not sounding correct. Is it fine?



Answer



Quit is not really transitive with the noun job; it's too intimately linked with its object, and that object is usually an Object Complement clause, because the normal meaning is to stop performing some activity permanently, or at least for some time. (There are also Subject Complements, but not in this example.)



  • He quit smoking.


There is also an economic idiom to quit which means to stop working at one's employment, permanently and voluntarily (as opposed, for instance, to being fired, which is permanent and involuntary, or being laid off, which is temporary and involuntary); the only direct object one can quit in this idiomatic sense is one's job, and so the object is frequently not expressed.


Thus it isn't really a transitive sentence because the verb and its object express an intransitive predicate -- like the idiom kick the bucket, meaning 'to die' -- and therefore can't be passivized.



  • Harry kicked the bucket yesterday. ~ *The bucket was kicked by Harry yesterday.

  • Harry quit his job yesterday. ~ *Harry's job was quit by him yesterday.


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