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In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object. That lack of an object distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are typically considered within a class apart from modal verbs and ...
Verbs that can be used in an intransitive or transitive way are called ambitransitive verbs. In English, an example is the verb to eat; the sentences You eat (with an intransitive form) and You eat apples (a transitive form that has apples as the object) are both grammatical. The concept of valency is related to transitivity. The valency of a ...
Often there is a semantic difference between the intransitive and transitive forms of a verb: the water is boiling versus I boiled the water; the grapes grew versus I grew the grapes. In these examples, known as ergative verbs , the role of the subject differs between intransitive and transitive verbs.
In mathematics, a binary relation R on a set X is transitive if, for all elements a, b, c in X, whenever R relates a to b and b to c, then R also relates a to c. Every partial order and every equivalence relation is transitive. For example, less than and equality among real numbers are both transitive: If a < b and b < c then a < c; and if x ...
For example, the relation R on the integers, such that a R b if and only if a + b is odd, is intransitive. If a R b and b R c, then either a and c are both odd and b is even, or vice-versa. In either case, a + c is even. A second example of an antitransitive relation: the defeated relation in knockout tournaments. If player A defeated player B ...
In some other languages, in which subjects are not syntactically obligatory, there would be no subject at all: The Spanish translation of It's raining, for example, is a single verb form, Llueve.) An intransitive verb takes one argument, e.g. He 1 sleeps. A transitive verb takes two, e.g. He 1 kicked the ball 2. A ditransitive verb takes three ...
In non-valency marking languages such as English, a transitive verb can often drop its object and become intransitive; or an intransitive verb can take an object and become transitive. For example, in English the verb move has no grammatical object in he moves (though in this case, the subject itself may be an implied object, also expressible ...
In the following example from Amharic, the verb can be head-marked for S, A, and O. Both S in the intransitive clause and A in the transitive clause are marked by the same affix (-ə ‘3SG.M’), while O in the transitive clause is marked by a different affix (-w ‘3SG.M.O’). [4] Amharic intransitive