Is this correct?

1. The sentence doesn't contain a grammatical error.

2. "Passive voice" not "passive tense":

- Tense = time-verb relationship
- Voice = subject-verb relationship

3. The "passive voice" is not a grammatical error. It's a grammatical construction.

4. The "be" in this sentence is a linking verb. It links the subject with the adjective "real". No action takes place at all.

The word "to be" can have three functions:

a) Rarely: main verb, meaning "behave":

- Stop being silly.

b) Linking verb: Linking the subject with one of its attributes.

- The cat is black.

c) An auxilary verb. Used to indicate a grammatical function. One of the grammatical functions "be" can indicate is the passive voice:

- The car was stolen.

Another grammatical function: the progressive aspect:

- He was playing the piano (when the lightning struck).

5. The "passive voice" doesn't need a form of "to be", either:

- They got married last Sunday.

Dawnstorm said:

. . .
5. The "passive voice" doesn't need a form of "to be", either:

- They got married last Sunday.

Click to expand...

Is that passive voice? Well I'll be darned, right you are! It took slogging in the vast set of definitions of "get" in the American Heritage/3rd to find confirmation, but there it is.

Impressive post!

--Ken

Dawnstorm has already answered the question admirably, but I feel the need to reinforce one detail.

ResearchGuy said:

Is that passive voice? Well I'll be darned, right you are! It took slogging in the vast set of definitions of "get" in the American Heritage/3rd to find confirmation, but there it is.

Impressive post!

--Ken

Click to expand...

Didn't know about that neither. Impressive post indeed.