English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I found few sentences such as following: The soundtrack of the movie proved to be a huge success.
I think the sentence should be "The soundtrack of the movie was proved to be a huge success." which is the right sentence in the passive voice.
I want to know as per which grammar rule, the form of "be" is skipped from the first sentence.
This isn't a passive and there's no omission.
From the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary ( http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prove ):
prove
to show a particular result after a period of time:
The operation proved a complete success.
The dispute over the song rights proved impossible to resolve.
[ L (+ to be) ] The new treatment has proved to be a disaster.
The verb "prove" is a copular(linking) verb in the below sentence:
The soundtrack of the movie proved to be a huge success.
See the following example from this site for reference:
GRAMMAR: Linking verbs Prove is a linking verb in this meaning. This type of verb links the subject of the sentence with an adjective or noun:
The task proved difficult. He has proved a loyal friend.
You can also say: The task proved to be difficult. He has proved to be a loyal friend.
The following search result from Google for "passive voice of copular verbs" clearly states that passive voice is not possible for the copular verb. Thus, the statement mentioned in this question can't be specified in the passive form.
Are linking verbs passive voice?
active voice: The guide lost the map. Verbs that are not action verbs are called stative verbs. Only action verbs have active or passive voice. Stative verbs are linking verbs and the verb “to be
