Languages & Linguistics
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Transitive verbs require a direct object to complete their meaning, while intransitive verbs do not. For example, in the sentence "She ate the apple," "ate" is a transitive verb because it requires the direct object "the apple" to make sense. In contrast, in the sentence "He sleeps," "sleeps" is an intransitive verb because it does not require a direct object.
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10 Key excerpts on "Transitive and Intransitive Verbs"
eBook - PDF- Martin J. Endley(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Information Age Publishing(Publisher)
Indeed, in some ways, it makes more sense to think of transitivity as a clause-level phenomenon, inasmuch as there are many verbs that can readily appear in either a transitive or an intransitive clause. Therefore, as Huddleston and Pullam suggest, it might be more appropri- ate to think in terms of transitive and intransitive uses of verbs. This is not to deny that there are some verbs that appear to be exclusively—or almost exclusively—transitive, being almost invariably found in transitive clauses. And likewise, some verbs appear to be exclusively intransitive. There is no harm in referring to the former as transitive verbs and the latter as intransitive verbs. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that there are many verbs—possibly the majority of verbs in modern English—that readily appear in either a transitive or an intransitive clause. This is an issue I will return to later. A second point follows from this. The concept of transitivity is often presented to DUEs as if it were a simple syntactic matter. Thus, teachers may tell their students that transitive verbs are followed by objects, intransi- tive verbs are not. Once again, these verb subcategories are often presented in rather a rigid fashion. Quite possibly, this is how you have been taught to regard them. However, it seems to me important to see that, rather than being a straightforwardly syntactic issue (does the verb have an object or does it not?), transitivity is a reflection of the semantics of the verb in ques- tion. In order to understand this, I will once more make use of the idea of participants in situations, which I discussed in previous chapters. Look the following sentences: (3) a. Nancy smiled. b. Nancy finished the exam. c. Nancy sent her mother the package. 190 Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar It is not difficult to see that these sentences differ from one another in one rather significant way. The difference lies in the number of participants that each sentence involves.
eBook - PDFTransforming the Images
Ergativity and Transitivity in Inuktitut (Eskimo)
- Elke Nowak(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
The ability to stand alone as the predicate (traditionally the defining characteristic of the intransitive verbs) is completely obscured by this analysis. The justification for the accusative case alone to represent transition is absent from these traditional accounts and is, in fact, taken for granted (Luhtala 1990: 23-24). Also of significance is the ability of direct objects to undergo passivization; the direct object is turned into the subject of a passive sentence. Beside this traditional view of objects, or in any event of direct objects, one commonly finds interpretations in the literature which concentrate solely on the fact that direct objects are complements or that define objects merely as the NP dominated by VP. The term transitivity also has semantic qualities, whereby it implies that an action is conceived as intentional, being exercised upon an object - more precisely, a patient. In this regard, the notion conjures up a kind of natural logic, by which actions may be divided into those involving an agent alone and those additionally involving a patient. In some instances, a third type of relationship (or role) enters the sentence, in the form of a goal or instrument. This interpretation of transitivity incorporates a semantic classification of verbs into action verbs and control verbs 89 versus stative verbs. Here I would like to abstract away from the semantic side and outline the purely syntactic aspects of transitivity. The terms subject and object are the most elementary notions of sentence structure. Their essential properties are the following: 1. Subject and predicate form the basic structure of every sentence. The subject is an obligatory nominal constituent which stands in an agreement relation with the predicate, whose head is always a finite verb. 2. An object is defined as a nominal extension of the predicate whose presence may be required by the verb. 3. The object has a different status from that of the subject.
- Kaori Kabata, Kiyoko Toratani, Kaori Kabata, Kiyoko Toratani(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
The present study reported an eye-tracking experiment, which was designed to investigate the attention paid to transitive and intransitive sentences in Japanese among native speakers and native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese. The results suggest that native speakers do not distinguish between ordinary intransitive and agent-implying intransitive verbs. They interpret both types of intransitive verbs as an event with little involvement of an agent. Native Cantonesespeaking learners, on the other hand, do not distinguish between Transitive and Intransitive Verbs. It is therefore suggested that learners should be directed more to the verb morphology in Japanese, and that they should be taught, with the use of real-life examples, that some intransitive verbs in Japanese act like adjectives: they only indicate a resultative state and do not include a process.To further investigate the issue of the acquisition of transitivity alternation, two major of lines of research may be conducted. First, studies can be conducted to investigate how much attention is given to the verb endings in Japanese by L2 learners of Japanese who speak a native language which makes little use of morphological marking, such as Cantonese. For example, another eye-tracking experiment can be used to examine learners’ fixation on the verb endings when reading Japanese sentences. The second line of research would involve teaching methods. It would be interesting to test whether associating the use Transitive and Intransitive Verbs with real-life situations actually helps learners understand the difference between the transitive and the intransitive counterparts of a given verb. To test this, a pre-test-post-test design may be used. A group of students can be shown with real-life examples (i.e., the treatment group), and another group will only be taught verb meanings and their equivalents in the learners’ L1 (i.e., the control group). Their understanding of Transitive and Intransitive Verbs can then be tested and compared with the use of a post-test.
eBook - PDFA Grammar of South Efate
An Oceanic Language of Vanuatu
- Nicholas Thieberger(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- University of Hawaii Press(Publisher)
Transitive verbs There is a small set of verbs that have different stems when acting as intransitive and transitive verbs. This alternation identifies the small group of transitive verbs, which would otherwise be classified as ambitransitive verbs with the ability to act in both transtitive and intransitive constructions. Each of these stems is part of a couplet, related in form, but by irregular means, made up of a transitive and intransitive form. This is similar to the situation in Anejon'l, where Lynch (2000b:68) notes a number of intransitive/transitive pairs of verbs, the members of each pair being formally different from each other. In South Efate, unlike Anejon'l, there are only a handful of verbs in this set and all examples in the data are listed below (there are two ditransitive verbs that also have intransitive counterparts and they are discussed in § 7 . 1 . 7 . 1 .) 186 Verbs and verb classes 44 fe to read (tr) fef to read (intr) fis to whip (tr) fisfis to masturbate (intr) kait to cry for (tr) kai to cry (intr) lwp to chase (game) (tr) jkop to chase (intr) lek to look (tr) le to look (intr) me to urinate (tr) m em to urinate (intr) pnul 3 to close something (tr) pon to be closed (intr) si blow something (tr) sisi to blow (intr) til to tell (tr/ditr) ftil to gossip (intr) tup to hit (tr) ftup to hit (intr) wes to work (tr) 64 to work (intr) weswes While there is no overall pattern to the relationship between these forms, several intransitive forms are f initial, suggesting a relic detransitivizing prefix. Reduplication derives three intransitive stems : fis /fi sfis , silsisi, and weslweswes (these are the only examples in the data of reduplication reducing the valency of a verb). I give examples of these transitive/intransitive pairs below.
eBook - PDFGrammar By Diagram - Second Edition
Understanding English Grammar Through Traditional Sentence Diagraming
- Cindy L. Vitto(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Broadview Press(Publisher)
In Chapter 2 we discussed the basic sentence patterns built around state of being verbs and thus containing either a be or a linking verb. In this chapter we will examine the remaining five basic sentence patterns: those built around action verbs, both intransitive and transitive. Remember that an intransitive verb is not followed by an object (noun or pronoun) that “receives” the action of the subject. A transitive verb, on the other hand, is followed by an object. Observe the dif-ference in the sentences below: The baby kicked . (intransitive verb) The baby kicked the blanket. (transitive verb because “blanket” is the object of the verb) PAT T E R N 6 ] T H E I N T R A N S I T I V E V E R B PAT T E R N subject – intransitive verb (s – itv) Pattern 6 provides us with a relatively simple diagram structure, since the only two essential ele-ments in this pattern are the simple subject and the simple verb: The king coughed. Typically, of course, a Pattern 6 sentence will contain non-essential elements as well, as in the sentence below. Remember that it is helpful to circle prepositional phrases in order to clear away structures that obscure the simple subject and simple verb. At the first mention of the scandal, the king coughed discreetly as a signal to his councilors. | 63 | Basic Sentence Patterns for Intransitive and Transitive Verbs 3 s itv king The coughed PAT T E R N S 7 , 8 , 9 , A N D 1 0 ] T H E T R A N S I T I V E V E R B PAT T E R N S Pattern 7 ] subject – transitive verb – direct object (s – tv – do) Pattern 7 constitutes the basic transitive verb pattern. Patterns 8, 9, and 10 are built from Pattern 7. In the following Pattern 7 sentence, notice that the verb is followed by an object, known as a direct object because it answers the question “whom” or “what” after the verb.
eBook - PDF- Dieter Wunderlich(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
(Again, there may be idiomatic verbs for which no pre-diction can be made on semantic grounds.) If that is true, the set of the four criteria would be characteristic for the four classes in (12) rather than the two classes in (13), which have been suggested by syntacticians. Since er -nominalization patterns with the possibility of passive, and the possibility of an attributive participle patterns with the choice of sein , no more than four classes need to be assumed. These four classes turn out to be deter-mined by semantic rather than syntactic criteria, as Kaufmann (1995a) has pointed out. 3.2. The relationship between intransitives and transitives Many intransitive verbs can be transitivized, and many transitive verbs can be intransitivized. Some of these shifts have no overt marking on the verb. But many languages have a transitivization marker, and often one finds two (or even more) of these markers: the causative, which adds an agent func-tioning as causer, and the applicative, which adds an object of some sort (a resultative object, a beneficiary, a possessor, a location or even an instru-ment). Transitive verbs formed from intransitive ones are mostly prototypi-cal in the sense of section 2, and those that undergo intransitivization (overtly marked or not) again are mostly prototypical transitives. Thus, the property of control seems to play a crucial role: [+control] marks the pres-ence of an agent, and [–control] marks the presence of an (affected) object. The relationship between transitives and intransitives can then be systema-tized as in (17); this relationship is overwhelmingly symmetric.
eBook - PDF- Sebastian Fedden(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Underivable intransitives These are intransitive verbs which cannot be derived to become transitive. On the derivation of transitive verbs from intransitive verbs, see 9.4. -A subset of the verbs of motion, e.g.: — /ei ‘fly’ and — /be ‘be walking, be moving along’, but not tl~te/te, tle ‘come, arrive’ and un~on/unê ‘go’, which can have a derived object. -Verbs denoting processes, e.g.: dama/ — ‘grow up’. -Verbs denoting noises, e.g.: — /klen ‘crack, rustle’, — /un ‘hum, drone’, — /sasan ‘moan’. 340 9. Argument structure and the syntax of the clause -Bodily processes, e.g.: namtlaalâ ‘clear one’s throat’, kusang ge/kusang ga ‘sneeze’, usáan fu ‘vomit’, — /gen ‘be sick’, tungtaka ‘yawn’. 9.2. Transitives Transitive verbs fall into four morphologically defined subgroups depending on whether the object is marked through a classificatory prefix, a pronominal prefix or suffix, or not at all: -Subclass 1: Transitives which index the object with a classificatory prefix (absolutive alignment), e.g -ò/ — ‘get, take’. -Subclass 2: Transitives which index the object with an object prefix (accusative alignment), e.g. -têm’/-temê’ ‘see, look at’. -Subclass 3: Transitives which index the object with an object suffix (indirective alignment), e.g. fote- ‘rout’. -Subclass 4: Transitives which never cross-reference the object, e.g. dowôn’/wen ‘eat’. It is possible to make a further distinction within the class of transitive verbs and call the set comprising the first three transitive subclasses affixed transitives because these verbs invariably index their object morphologically with a pronominal prefix or suffix or a classificatory prefix. On the grammatical relation of object in Mian and how it is marked, see 3.14.2.
eBook - PDF- Simon E. Overall(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
There are, however, certain contexts in which the transitivity distinction is clearly apparent. The clearest is that of valency-changing derivation. Verbs can be transitivized or (less commonly) detransitivized with deri-vational suffixes, showing clearly that underived roots must have inherent transitiv-ity values. The only object-like properties of a non-subject participant of an intransitive clause relate to: (i) the non-subject nominalizers -taĩ and -mau which form nominals referring to a participant associated with the action of the verb (typically instru-ment, location or O); (ii) the subordinator -ma , which indicates that a non-subject 292 | Grammatical relations and transitivity argument of the subordinate clause (typically an object) is coreferential with the subject of the controlling clause. Because of the possibility of NP ellipsis and the fact that third-person objects are zero-marked on the verb, many instances of lexically transitive verbs could be con-sidered intransitive, and the verbs would thus be S=A ambitransitives. In fact, how-ever, only a few verbs are truly ambitransitive. Non-overt objects may be topical and accessible from the preceding discourse, or pragmatically accessible from the physi-cal context; in those cases we can say that the clause is transitive, with an under-stood O argument. Consider example (7.49). (7.49) hukíta hu-ki-ta take-PFV -IMP ‘take it!’ There are no overt argument NPs in the clause. Second person singular subject is indexed by the use of the imperative suffix, but there is no indexing of an object. For this clause to make sense, however, there must be an understood object; an appro-priate context would be if a visitor was admiring some item in the host’s house, and the host offered it as a gift. The appropriate translation into English must include the object pronoun ‘it’. A few verbs do allow both transitive and intransitive uses.
eBook - PDFTransitivity
Grammatical Relations in Government-Binding Theory
- Teun Hoekstra(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
in languages that do not exhibit case distinctions, no distinction can be made between a verb that takes a direct object and a verb that merely takes an indirect object. Several types of adverbial modifiers can take the form of an NP. Analyses have been put forth to analyze these adverbial NP's as being really PP's of which the preposition happened to be deleted. All the problems that the Aspects approach meets with can be defined away in sane way or other. The preceding discussion suggests, however, that a more sensible classifica-tion of verbs could be made in terms of the property of selecting a ©-subject. The traditional class of intransitives can be divided into two subclasses, one of which displays the properties of transitives, while the other share its proper-ties with passives of traditional transitives. I suggest that transitivity is regarded no longer as a property of cctribining with an NP to form a VP (or rather V'), but rather as having an external 9-role. I propose therefore that the traditional classification in (223) is replaced by the classification in (224). (223) transitive: [ NP —] examples: doden 'kill', breken 'break' (causative) opvallen 'strike' intransitive: [ , —] examples: lachen 'laugh', sterven 'die' breken 'break' (non-causative) (224) intransitive: ©'-subject examples: sterven 'die', breken 'break' (non-causative) opvallen 'strike', trans itive: ©-sub ject examples: doden 'kill', lachen 'laugh' breken 'break' (causative) According to the classification proposed in (224), the subcategory of transitive verbs includes logically one-place predicates, whereas the subcategory of in-transitives includes logically two-place predicates. What this means is that I claim that the logical nature of a predicate that is expressed by a particular verb is not a relevant property fran a linguistic point of view. The classifica-
eBook - PDFArchaic Syntax in Indo-European
The Spread of Transitivity in Latin and French
- Brigitte Bauer(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In spoken Tibetan e.g. this mark-ing pattern indicates the distinction between 'going somewhere' as a child as opposed to 'going somewhere' as an adult. Non-transitive languages 59 In Split-S languages, on the other hand, intransitive verbs are divided into two sets, roughly on semantic grounds, but each still has a single syntactic frame available (Dixon 1994:82). The semantics of the verb are therefore inherently related to the concept of [a control], which accounts for the absence of variation. Split-S and Fluid-S languages are therefore basically the same; Fluid-S languages, however, allow context-related vari-ation, whereas Split-S languages represent the more rigid type. It is very difficult to give an adequate analysis of these languages if one holds - be it consciously or unconsciously - to the distinction of transitive vs. intran-sitive (see e.g. Dixon 1994:72-78). The very split in subject marking sug-gests that intransitive verbs in this type of language no longer represent a specific category of their own, diametrically opposed to transitive verbs as expressed by grammatical marking. It is therefore legitimate to assume that we are dealing with a fundamentally different language system. This theoretical observation is further supported by Mithun's findings (1991) showing that in these languages the distinction is between event vs. state, and not, grammatically speaking, between transitive and intransitive. Agency marking indeed cuts across the traditional distinction of transitive vs. intransitive verb classes. Similarly, in a number of American Indian languages, such as Takelma, the morphological marker of So does not correspond to the patient marking of transitive verbs (Sapir 1917a:84).
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