Learn English – “Is/was received” and only “received”

passive-voicesentence-construction

The documents which were received by you are forged.

I read the sentence above and as per my perception it is wrong. Because the word "received" is an intransitive verb and should not be used in passive voice.

The sentence should be like this:

The documents which you received are forged.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Best Answer

In-/transitivity of the verb has nothing to do with your question in this case, the verb stays the same:

The documents [...] are forged.

Now let's consider the rest from the brackets:

It describes the noun (here: the documents) of the main clause it's a defining relative clause.

If the documents or the receiver are the subject of the relative clause is purely a question of style and has no influence on the main clause.

So

[which were received by you] and
[which you received]

are both valid.

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