passive-voicesentence-construction
I am confused of uses of belong in sentences. I know belong is intransitive verb so it should not be used in passive sentence.
But still I can see it is used with "is" and "was" like below examples a)
Can we use "Belong" to tell status of something like below examples?
Examples
a) This property is/was belongs/belong to us
b) This property belongs/belong to us
c) This property has/had belonged to us
Please help me to understand correct use of belong in English sentences
It is possible, but unusual.
According to Practical English Usage by Michael Swan,
498 relatives (5): advanced points
12 agreement of person
Most relative clauses have third-person reference; I who ... , you who ... and we who ... are unusual, though they sometimes occur in a very formal style.
You who pass by, tell them of us and say
For their tomorrow we gave our today.
(Allied war memorial at Kohima)
Here is one such example,
"The beggarly Jewish radicals of the 30's are now the ruling cultural pundits of American society -- I who stood so long outside the door wondering if I would ever get through it, am now one of the standard-bearers of American literary opinion -- a judge to young men."
--Kazin, Alfred. The Passionate Encounter: In 65 years of keeping a journal, a noted midcentury critic had much to say about his fellow writers and the literary world they shared.
Break into is a transitive verb. This is what the Merriam-Webster Unabridged says. Other dictionaries seem to differ, but in this answer the verb will be used in a transitive sense.
Specifically, it is a prepositional verb because the verb + preposition make one meaning-unit. (A prepositional verb is not a phrasal verb, even if some dictionaries wrongly list break into with phrasal verbs. (There are tests to distinguish the two types of verbs; I don't want to overlong this answer with them, but I can provide).
Without an object, the sentence is incomplete and thus ungrammatical:
ungrammatical without an object:
*He broke into.
grammatical forms:
active:
He broke into the house
passive:
The house was broken into by him.
Note the sense of action or motion or direction (He broke into the house).
Notice that break into cannot always be used in the passive. It is precisely when the verb does not have a sense of motion/action that this is the case.
He broke into a sweat.
*A sweat was broken into by him.
The audience broke into applause.
*Applause was broken into by the audience.
*A gallop was broken into by the horse
Last, another transitive verb, composed of one word, can substutute for break into: burgle. (Note there are no exact synonyms and let's not get into legal definitions.)
Best Answer
Yes, "belong" can indicate ownership. Or perhaps I should say the opposite of ownership: "I own this box" implies "This box belongs to me."
Whether you use "belong" or "belongs" simply depends on whether the subject is singular or plural. "It belongs" but "They belong".
You can use it in the simple present or in other tenses. "This belongs to Bob." "This will belong to Bob" (perhaps after he has proven himself worthy). "This belonged to Bob" (but it doesn't belong to him any more). Etc.
You don't say "is belongs", just "belongs".