This paper deals with the way the comment value conventionally associated with the passive construction builds up. This value is studied from two points of view. I first examine the connections that it ineluctably forms with the addressee, and then I confront the very value with that found in the present perfect, another compound form of the English system, which I have studied at length. It turns out that both points of view are directly linked to the preliminary diachronic presentation of the passive. Far from conflicting, these two comment values complement each other and in a sense could be seen as forming a kind of system per se.