být + Passive Participle

The periphrastic passive (opisné pasivum) is a deagentive construction that promotes the patient (direct object) of an action to the grammatical subject. It is a hallmark of formal and literary Czech.

Formation:
It is formed using the auxiliary verb být (in any tense or mood) plus the short passive participle (typically ending in -n or -t). To express repeated, habitual, or general passive actions, the frequentative auxiliary bývat is commonly used instead of být (e.g., bývá často kritizován - he is often criticized). While typically formed from transitive verbs, it can also be formed from intransitive verbs to create impersonal constructions.

Key Rules:

• Agreement: The participle must strictly agree with the subject in gender and number (e.g., singular: masculine vyroben, feminine vyrobena, neuter vyrobeno; plural: masculine animate vyrobeni, masculine inanimate/feminine vyrobeny, neuter vyrobena).
• Negation: The negative prefix ne- usually attaches to the auxiliary verb to negate the action (e.g., nebyl schválen), though it can attach to the participle for specific lexicalized meanings or states (e.g., byl neporažen).
• Expressing the Agent: If needed, the agent is primarily expressed using the instrumental case without a preposition (e.g., napsán autorem). While the preposition od + genitive can express a source or sender, using it for a direct agent (e.g., byl pokousán od psa) is generally considered archaic, colloquial, or substandard in modern Czech. The bare instrumental is the standard formal method.
• Action vs. Stative Passive: The interpretation of the passive depends on the verb's aspect. Imperfective verbs with the present tense of být describe an ongoing action (e.g., dům je stavěn - the house is being built). However, perfective verbs with the present tense of být express a resulting state or stative passive (e.g., dům je postaven - the house is built). To express an action passive with perfective verbs, the future tense (e.g., dům bude postaven - the house will be built), past tense, or conditional is used. Note that in the past tense, perfective verbs can be ambiguous: dům byl postaven can mean the action happened in the past (the house was built) OR that the state existed in the past (the house was in a built state). Note that in more informal contexts, the long adjectival form is often used for the stative passive (e.g., dům je postavený).
• Impersonal Passive: Intransitive verbs can form a subjectless impersonal passive using the neuter singular form of the participle (e.g., bylo rozhodnuto - it was decided).
• Reflexive Verbs: Inherently reflexive verbs (verbs that always take se or si) generally cannot form the periphrastic passive.

Crucial Distinctions:

• Unlike the reflexive passive, which is common in everyday speech and used almost exclusively in the 3rd person (e.g., everyday Dům se staví instead of formal Dům je stavěn), the periphrastic passive can be used in all persons but sounds stiff and bureaucratic in casual conversation.

Stylistic Note: English speakers often overuse this pattern. In Czech, if the agent is known, it is almost always better to use the active voice and utilize Czech's flexible word order to emphasize the object. Furthermore, in spoken, everyday Czech (Common Czech), the short participle is almost entirely replaced by the long adjective form (e.g., byl zbourán becomes byl zbouranej).