 For example, while the passive voice expresses a Medium (Goal) being affected by an external Agent (Actor) as in "The casserole was cooked in the oven", the middle voice expresses a Medium undergoing change without any external Agent "The casserole cooked in the oven".In English, the inflections and constructions for middle voice and active voice are the same for these cases.In other cases such as in Classical Greek, the middle voice is often used for material processes where the Subject is both the Actor (the one doing the action) and the Medium (that which is undergoing change) as in "the man got a shave", opposing both active and passive voices where the Medium is the Goal as in "the barber shaved the man" and "the man got shaved by the barber".