@ChickenFreak "He was standing" is past continuous/progressive, because you have helping verb to be conjugated for the past and the progressive form of the main verb. It's actually good that way in English--the tense names tell you how to conjugate, not necessarily anything about time. Past (helping verb) progressive (main verb). "He was stopped" is passive because you have the helping verb to be with the past participle form of the main verb. That's how the passive is formed.
It sounds like you are now treating "stopped" as a verb and not an adjective. But doesn't passive voice need an object, at least an implied object? Can you have passive voice with an intransitive verb? I'm using "stopped" as an intransitive verb, as in: After the clock stopped, the clock was stopped. Nobody stopped the clock; the clock stopped on its own. "Stopped", here is an intransitive verb. Edited to add: Or it's an adjective. That's what I see as the point of contention here. But it's not passive. I go Googling and offer a transitive/intransitive verb exercise that includes "stopped": http://www.englishgrammar.org/transitive-intransitive-verbs-exercise/ And another one that declares that intransitive verbs cannot be passive: http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/passive1d.html Edited to add: Let's try a different verb/adjective: John was sitting. Here we have a continuous past tense intransitive verb. John was seated. Here we have an adjective. Yes? No? I think that the core of this is that you see "stopped" as being similar to "seated" while I see it as being similar to "sitting." I don't expect you to see it as similar to "sitting"; I think that that's just my quirk. But I'm trying to figure out whether that is indeed our disagreement, or if it's something else.
I think my main point of confusion is why your example sentences are always using two different types of grammar. I sort of addressed this in my last post, but not very elegantly. So, "John was sitting" is a past continuous sentence. The only reason "was" is in the mix here is to help the main verb. The -ing shows that the action is (or was, in this case) in progress. "He was sitting when the meal came." I know sitting is a verb because it is what John is doing, not what John is. I do see "John was seated" as passive voice. Just like above, was is a helping verb. But this sentence is in no way like "John was sitting" because the main verb is preterite. So, John was seated by an usher or a waiter. If it's not supposed to have this meaning, I don't see any reason not to say "John sat." But these two sentences--grammatically--are very, very different. I believe this is our main point of disagreement.I don't see how "stopped" can be similar to "sitting" because they are using different grammar. There are adjectives that look like verbs, either ending in -ing or -ed, and these can be confusing. Most of these adjectives deal with emotions, or states. Bored/boring, lost, ruined, gone, finished, interested/interested. Perhaps this is adding to the confusion?
The two different types of grammar were often my point. That's not a bug, it's a feature. Yes! OK, so we finally agree on the grammar of a sentence. But not the grammar of this sentence, at least not necessarily. This could be passive voice, implying that someone seated John, as in: John was seated by the headwaiter. But it could also just describe John's current state, in which case it's an adjective: The audience remained seated. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/seated) And that's what I tried explaining a while ago is my quirk, but every time I explained it I also went off on other tangents, so the explanation was probably lost in the fog. In my dialect, and it's quite likely just MY dialect, rather than that of any group of people, I hear "stopped" as an intransitive continuous verb. I see a cat, sitting by a mouse hole, staring at that hole, quivering, quivering, quivering, waiting for the mouse to emerge. He's not moving, he's not stalking, he's stopped. I see it as an action, a continuous conscious choice, just as "walking" is an action, a continuous conscious choice. And that's why I didn't see "he was stopped" as containing a verb in passive voice or containing an adjective. It's because in my mind, "stopped" can be not just an intransitive verb ("John stopped."), but a continuous intransitive verb. But no dictionary agrees with me, so it's clear that that only works in my own mind.
Well, it's good to have that settled then. Now seeing your thought process, it's likely that in a story I wouldn't even notice this sentence, because with context it would be more than clear what was meant.
I'm seeing these two sentences as having different meanings. The war has just ended = The war is over, and it was recently that it ended. The war just ended = The war is over; it just sort of ran out of steam and ended. And then I saw this in today's paper: ...Twilight star (Robert Pattinson) said..."Since I've become an actor, most people don't want to admit it. People just want to say they're a waiter." If he'd said "Since I became an actor..." it would have meant that in the period from when he began acting there had been a change in the perception of the status of the job of waiter. Whereas saying "Since I've become an actor..." implies a causative relationship with his taking up acting and people perceiving being a waiter as more prestigious. In vino veritas.
I'd refer you to this site: https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simpas-preper I believe this is still a US vs. UK issue.
