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He stopped me from entering into the room by taking the help of his brother.

How do I change this sentence into passive? Do we change the phrase "by taking the help of his brother" into passive or keep it as it is?

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    Matrix clause passivisation would yield the somewhat unnatural I was stopped by him from entering the room by him taking the help of his brother.
    – BillJ
    Feb 14, 2022 at 12:10
  • More natural would be I was stopped from entering the room by him taking the help of his brother.
    – BillJ
    Feb 14, 2022 at 12:35
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    It's not very idiomatic to include into after to enter, except in certain "frozen form" contexts such as entering into a [legal] contract. And it would normally be with rather than by taking, so in total He stopped me [from] entering the room with his brother's help. Where that final adverbial clause could be "fronted" to avoid any suggestion that I (the nearest immediately preceding pronoun) was being (unsuccessfully) helped by his brother: With his brother's help, he stopped me entering the room . Feb 14, 2022 at 13:44
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    Is this a question from a text book Please acknowledge the source of the quote. Is this an exercise in "changing to the passive" - if not, I ask "why change to the passive?"
    – James K
    Feb 14, 2022 at 22:34
  • I find "taking the help of" to be extremely unnatural. "asking for help from" or "receiving/getting help from" sound better. Also "with the help of".
    – Colin Fine
    Mar 20 at 17:46

1 Answer 1

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Matrix clause passivisation would yield the somewhat unnatural

I was stopped by him from entering the room by him taking the help of his brother.

More natural would be:

I was stopped from entering the room by him taking the help of his brother

It's not very idiomatic to include into after to enter, except in certain "frozen form" contexts such as entering into a [legal] contract. And it would normally be with rather than by taking, so in total He stopped me [from] entering the room with his brother's help. Where that final adverbial clause could be "fronted" to avoid any suggestion that I (the nearest immediately preceding pronoun) was being (unsuccessfully) helped by his brother:

With his brother's help, he stopped me entering the room.

This could be passivised as

With his brother's help, I was stopped by him from entering the room.

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