Learn English – “has not seen” versus “has not been seen”

passive-voicepresent-perfecttense

In the sentence

The ocean, 95% of which has not (seen/been seen) before.

I know that the correct answer is "been seen". Why do I use been, the past tense of "to be"? Is there a better way to say this sentence?

Best Answer

This is a present perfect passive construction:

has been seen

Been is not the "past tense" of BE: it is its past/passive participle—let's abbreviate that PaPpl.

The preceding first verbform in the construction is has, a present-tense form of the perfect auxiliary HAVE. This auxiliary requires the following verb to take the PaPpl form, thus building a perfect construction.

Similarly, the BE here, in its PaPpl form been, is the passive auxiliary, which also requires a following PaPpl to build the passive construction: in this case, seen, the PaPpl of the final, lexical verb in the construction, SEE.