Meaning of pseudopassive | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A construction where the object of a preposition has been promoted to the role of subject, as in The problem was talked about.
2. A construction that removes the subject from an intransitive verb, as in the Dutch sentence Er wordt gefloten ("[Someone] whistled").

Examples

“Consider the English pseudo-passive in (4). (4) This bed has not been slept in for many years”

“Consider now the pseudo-passive, Er werd gefloten "There was whistling." Here, just as in the true passive, the morphology asserts high participant not focussed.”

CEFR level