Hey guys, I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on passive verbs with
"that" clauses. Okay, this is going to help you in your debates, your arguments, and your
academic essays.
So this is for advanced learners who are either going into university, writing essays in high
school, college, university -- any level of higher education. So here we have -- let's
look at the three sentences first.
And we can first notice a passive structure, so we have to understand what passive actually
means and what a "that" clause is. So we have for example, "It was claimed by Copernicus
that we lived in a heliocentric universe." "Heliocentric" means the sun is the center
of the universe and everything else goes around the sun.
So here we have "it was claimed". Now this is just a simple past passive sentence: "It
was claimed." By who? By Copernicus, and here we have the "that" clause: "that we lived".
Well, we do live, "in a heliocentric universe", okay?
So first you have the passive construction, when you are talking about making an argument,
or a claim, or a belief, a theory, and here we have the "that" clause, but what was claimed?
What was believed? What was said "that we lived in a heliocentric universe" back in Copernicus's
day. That's what he said. And we still do, and obviously do live in a heliocentric universe.
Let's look at couple of more examples, two more sentences, and then we'll look at some
academic verbs, common verbs that you can use in your academic essays. "It is thought that
Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever." So here you see the "it" structure
again, you have "it", plus the verb "to be", plus the passive verb. "It is thought", by who?
Here, you don't have to say "by" because it is thought by many people. It's obvious. You
don't have to say by who in this situation. It is thought by many people. What is thought
by many people? "That Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever", okay? Same construction.
Now let's look at the third example. "It is theorized that aliens built the pyramids."
Who knows? Well, I think we do know. This is probably wrong. However, it is theorized -- there
is a theory of conspiracy theorists. "It is theorized that aliens built the pyramids."
Okay? So now that we have the structure: "it", plus the verb "to be", plus the passive verb,
let's look at some academic verbs that you can use in these passive constructions and
"that" clauses. So we have -- and you can work on the pronunciation, too -- so if you're having
a debate with somebody; "allege", "assume", "believe", "claim", "fear", "feel", "hold",
"postulate", "predict", "say", "theorize", and "think".
Many of these verbs simply mean "it was said", "it was believed", to some degree. I know
most of you probably know verbs like "believe", "say", "think", perhaps you even know "claim",
but verbs such as "allege" or "postulate" or "hold", might be new to you. So in this
situation let me give you some quick explanations about each of these higher level verbs that
you can use, and that you can adapt and adopt for your own academic purposes.
We have "allege". "Allege" is similar to "assume", okay? So this is something that a person said
and they believed it, they assumed it to be true, okay? We can say "it was alleged by
Copernicus", "it was claimed by Copernicus", "It was assumed by Copernicus", as well.
Okay? "Claimed" -- if a person makes a "claim", they are saying that something is probably true, okay?
So again just like we have here, "It was claimed by Copernicus", this is what he said. I know
you understand "fear", "feel". "Hold" -- okay, if you know the verb "hold", you can probably
imagine its use in an academic setting, or in a debate setting, in an argument setting.
If I say, "It is held by many people that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of
all time.", they hold that belief to be true. They hold it close to them.
Sorry about that, guys. I touched the microphone. Now "postulate", similar to "theorize" in
this situation. They said a theory, okay? All right guys, that's it. That's all we have
to say about this. So if you'd like to test your understanding of these academic verbs,
which I hope you will use in your essays, in universities, in colleges, even in
high school. They can make your work sound at that next level.
If you want to test your understanding of this, and this structure in particular, you
can check out the quiz on www.EngVid.com . Good luck and take care.
Learn English for free www.engvid.com