General Question

lessonenglish's avatar

Can anybody clear my doubts?

Asked by lessonenglish (278points) March 2nd, 2010

I am very confused of following sentences:

1.He is gone.
2.He has gone.

OR
.
1.You are finished
2.You have finished.

OR

1.He is done.
2.He has done.

OR

1.I am obliged.
2.I have obliged.

I know that the 1 No. sentences are in Active voice & 2 are in passive voice.
but Is the meaning of these two sentences different?
when i am making such type of sentences i am always confused.

Please can you give me some examples?

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6 Answers

davidbetterman's avatar

He is gone = He has gone

You are finished = you have finished

He is done… he has finished
He has done.. something…an uncompleted action

I am obliged…expresses gratitude (at least in westerns it does)
I have obliged = I have done as requested, ”I have obliged you…

lessonenglish's avatar

Can anybody tell me more on this?

gemiwing's avatar

I’m hardly an expert but this is how they are different to me:

You are finished
You, as a person, is finished. Something has happened to you to ‘finish’ you.

You have finished
You have completed a task.

He is gone
Something has happened to him to make him leave or go away.

He has gone
Something happened to make him decide to go away.

morphail's avatar

The number 1 sentences aren’t necessarily passive. “Go” is an unaccusative verb; it can’t be made passive. Unaccusative verbs can use either “be” or “have” – another example is “fall”: “It is fallen – it has fallen”.

I would say that your other 3 examples consist of “be” plus an adjective. However “I am obliged” can also be passive. I suppose “you are finished” could be passive, but I don’t know in what circumstances you would use it.

LostInParadise's avatar

Ah, the messiness of language! A phrase like “He is done” can technically be passive, but it is not likely. We do not, except in colloquial use, talk about doing a person. It is more likely being used as an adjective, meaning the person is finished with some activity. “He has done x” means that the person has in the past done activity x one or more times.

Even in a sentence like “They were frightened” it is more likely that frightened is being used as an adjective than that it is passive voice. If the sentence is extended to something like “They were frightened by the loud noise” then it would be passive voice.

LostInParadise's avatar

And if that is not messy enough for you, the “has” phrases can be used to mean the same thing as the “is” phrases. “He has finished” can be used to mean pretty much the same thing as “He is finished.”

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