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Reading a book I found this sentence but cannot understand its construction. Here it is :
The media have proven highly efficient to mold public opinion.
Is it comparable to this one : The media have proven high efficiency to mold public opinion. ( is this correct"
In the first sentence : highly is an adverb, and efficient is an adjective but I cannot see wich word was described by this adjective.
Thank you.
Highly efficient is the complement of the verb have proven. Prove, (in this sense) like become and seem can take a noun phrase or an adjective phrase as their complement.
This is different from prove meaning "demonstrate that something is correct or true" - it means "turn out" or "be discovered to be". So no, your paraphrase doesn't work, because you have made prove transitive, and it cannot have this meaning as a transitive verb.
You could insert to be after proven without changing the meaning.
