SBVR — Implicit Passive Forms

It is a matter of grammar that verbs have passive forms. The standard passive formation uses the past participle of a verb preceded by “is” and followed by “by”. For example, I can say a cat eats a mouse or I can say a mouse is eaten by a cat. The vocabularies defined in SBVR explicitly include passive forms. But this is not necessary any more than it is necessary to include infinitive, subjunctive and plural forms. The forms are produced by rules of grammar. Synynomous forms should be given where a different verb is being used, but not for simply showing the same verb in different grammatical configurations.

In general, passive forms have been left out of diagrams. But they are explicitly listed in the vocabulary entries. It would be benefitial to simply explain in the appendix on SBVR Structured English that passive forms are implicitly usable and then omit passive forms from the vocabulary entries. This simplifies and shortens the specification without losing any meaning and without changing the meaning of any definition or statement. It makes the SBVR MOF metamodels and XMI schemas smaller without losing any semantic content. It also sets a better example for future users of SBVR.

see above