She was brought - personal passive

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Buddy42

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Jul 16, 2014
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German
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Germany
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Germany
Hello,

Talking about the personal passive: There are some verbs that cannot be used to form sentences in the personal passive voice, for instance "explain".

But what about the verb "bring"? Let's take the sentence: The librarian brought her a cup of tea.
The "normal" passive would be "A cup of tea was brought to her (by the librarian)."

Is it also technically possible / idiomatic to say: She was brought a cup of tea? Implying, that it was a cup of tea and not a book, as one would expect a librarian to bring.
 
Hello.

Talking about the personal passive, there are some verbs that cannot be used to form sentences in the personal passive voice; for instance, "explain".

But However, what about the verb "bring"? Let's take the sentence no colon here "The librarian brought her a cup of tea".
The "normal" passive would be "A cup of tea was brought to her (by the librarian)."

Is it also technically possible/idiomatic to say no colon here "She was brought a cup of tea" no full stop here implying no comma here that it was a cup of tea and not a book, as one would expect a librarian to bring?
Note my corrections above.

You can use "She was brought a cup of tea" in any context that involves someone bringing someone female a cup of tea. I don't know why you think it implies some sort of surprise that a librarian brought a cup of tea instead of a book. If you want to express that surprise, you'll have to make it much clearer.
 
Thank you, that helps a lot! I really do appreciate your willingness to correct my language errors.

I assumed that the verb "bring" is one of those verbs that are not normally used in the personal passive voice, according to a list my teacher gave me a few years ago. As such, I thought I might need a good reason to use it that way, anyways.
 
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