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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 ...
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 ...
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]
Transitive alignment: certain Iranian languages, such as Rushani, distinguish only transitivity (in the past tense), using a transitive case for both A and O, and an intransitive case for S. That is sometimes called a double-oblique system, as the transitive case is equivalent to the accusative in the non-past tense.
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