Which is (more) correct:
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Prices are yet to be confirmed.
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Prices have yet to be confirmed.
I know, I could change it to “Prices have not yet been confirmed”, but that’s beside the point.
Since prices are an inamimate object, I think “have” is better. They aren’t going to do anything. Something will be done to them. I’m going with #2.
Agreed, #2 just sounds more correct :>
NutMagnet - but this is in passive voice, so it’s understood that the prices aren’t doing anything - the confirming is to be done by someone unspecified. I’d say both are fine.
I’d agree with raygirvan – neither is wrong, though I’d use the latter purely out of personal preference.
Both are correct, but for different reasons.
This is passive voice. “Prices are to be confirmed.” Add in the “yet” and there you are. A lot of people don’t like a lot passive voice for writing, but it’s vernacular and I’d be apt to say it speaking. It’s passive because passive is always a form “to be” (not the “to be” in the sentence, but the conjugated “are,” e.g., “Prices are confirmed.” The “to” belongs to “be,” so you have “prices are” and then “to be.” Of course you could argue the confirmed is an adjective and not a participle form of a verb.
This is active voice. “Prices have to be confirmed.” It looks like it could be passive, since you’re saying “to be confirmed” and you’re using the past participle. But it’s not, because the point of the sentence is that the “prices have to.” Granted that strictly speaking the “to” forms part of the infinitive “to be,” but “have to” is kind of it’s own form. Substitute “must” for example. “Prices must be confirmed.” In both cases, there’s no conjugated “be” so there’s no passive voice.
Aren’t they both passive? The prices aren’t doing any confirming. They’re being confirmed.
I would have to go with #2, it just sounds more correct to me, but then again, I can’t explain why:)
No; in the first example the price “is being” confirmed. Passive, just like you say. In the second, though, it’s not being confirmed. The prices “have to” do something. If “prices have to rise” then the prices are actively rising. If “prices have to be confirmed” they are “having to be verified.” Really, they are actively “having to be.”
Huh? They’re actively “having to be”? They’re not doing anything, though.
The car hit him (active)
He was hit by the car (passive)
We will confirm the prices (active)
Prices have yet to be confirmed by us (passive)
Correct.
Incorrect.
We will confirm the prices (active)
The prices will be confirmed by us (passive)
When you add “have” in there, you change the meaning of the sentence.
My grammar is a little rusty, but from what I can recall, in the phrase “Prices have to be confirmed”, the subject is “prices”, the verb is “have”, and the direct object is “to be confirmed”, which is a prepositional phrase. It’s only passive voice when the subject is also the object of the verb, and that is not the case here.
In the case of the phrase “Prices have yet to be confirmed”, the object of the sentence and the subject are not the same, ergo it’s in active voice.
My gut feeling is that #1 is more definite: “Prices are to be confirmed by 4:00 PM Friday” while #2 is more general: “Prices have to be confirmed before any sale notices are approved”. Both are grammaticaly correct.
Prices have to be low is active.
So are Prices may be low/Prices are low. No agent is implicit in the state of being low. Low is a modifier.
Prices have to be confirmed and Prices are confirmed are passive. Confirmed is the past participle of a verb. It implies confirmation by another agent.
You cannot separate the elements of a verb. “have to be confirmed” is a verb, comprising four words, one of which just happens to be a past participle. That does not make it active.
My money would be on bookkeeper’s opinion. That’s what I think as well: Both are correct, but there is a slight difference in the sentences’ meaning.
Here’s a hard and fast writing rule - if a sentence causes this much trouble, then start over. If you can’t fix the sentence, then attack the whole paragraph.
Maybe what you’re looking for is “Prices not yet available.”
If you know when the prices will be confirmed, then say so.
Okay, I’ll concede my wrongness.