= Active voice
<Active voice> is the <grammatical voice> of constructions such as `The technician opened the valve`, where the actor is expressed as <subject (grammar)>. It contrasts with a corresponding <passive voice> construction, `The valve was opened by the technician`, in which that participant is expressed differently.<Active Voice in the SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms>[Definition and actor/subject contrast]{ref}
The contrast holds the described event fixed while changing grammatical organization. In the first example, `the valve` is the <object (grammar)>; in the second, it occupies the <subject (grammar)> position. The actor's presence in a by-phrase does not make that phrase the subject.
Separating voice from other features avoids a common classification error. `The technician did not open the valve` remains active even though it denies that an opening occurred. Likewise, changing `opened` to `opens` can change <grammatical tense> without changing <grammatical voice>. A grammatical analysis should identify the construction and its participant relationships, rather than infer voice from whether the sentence sounds energetic or describes a completed action.
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