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English is rather flexible as regards verb valency, and so it has a high number of ambitransitive verbs; other languages are more rigid and require explicit valency changing operations (voice, causative morphology, etc.) to transform a verb from intransitive to transitive or vice versa.
Many languages, including English, have ditransitive verbs that denote two objects, and some verbs may be ambitransitive in a manner that is either transitive (e.g., "I read the book" or "We won the game") or intransitive (e.g., "I read until bedtime" or "We won") depending on the given context.
In grammar, the intransitive case (abbreviated INTR), also denominated passive case or patient case, is a grammatical case used in some languages to mark the argument of an intransitive verb, but not used with transitive verbs.
English has a number of ergative verbs: verbs which can be used either intransitively or transitively, where in the intransitive use it is the subject that is receiving the action, and in the transitive use the direct object is receiving the action while the subject is causing it.
The identification of unaccusative verbs in English is therefore based on other criteria, notably: Many unaccusative verbs alternate with a corresponding transitive verb, where the unaccusative subject appears in direct object position. The ice melted. ≈ The sun melted the ice. The window broke. ≈ The golf ball broke the window.
A transitive verb like “make”, for example, was assigned the feature [+--NP] meaning that “make” can (+) appear before (--) a noun phrase (NP). [3] Verbs that take just one argument are classified as intransitive, while verbs with two and three arguments are classified as transitive and ditransitive, respectively. [ 4 ]
[1]: 322 Conversely, British English favours fitted as the past tense of fit generally, whereas the preference of American English is more complex: AmE prefers fitted for the metaphorical sense of having made an object [adjective-]"fit" (i.e., suited) for a purpose; in spatial transitive contexts, AmE uses fitted for the sense of having made an ...
The verb "swim" can be either transitive or intransitive. It is misleading to say that swim is an intransitive verb in English, since it is also transitive. Source: Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary. I'm looking for some intransitive-only examples in addition to die and sleep.