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Verbs that do not require an object are called intransitive verbs. An example in modern English is the verb to arrive. 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 ...
Recent work in case theory has vigorously supported the idea that the ergative case identifies the agent (the intentful performer of an action) of a verb. [ 4 ] In Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) for example, the ergative case is used to mark subjects of transitive verbs and possessors of nouns.
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.
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]
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 ...
Verbs are used in certain patterns which require the presence of specific arguments in the form of objects and other complements of particular types. (A given verb may be usable in one or more of these patterns.) A verb with a direct object is called a transitive verb. Some transitive verbs have an indirect object in addition to the direct object.
subject, verb, predicative complement SVOO: ditransitive: I must send my parents an anniversary card. subject, verb, indirect object, direct object SVOC: complex-transitive: Most students have found her reasonably helpful. subject, verb, object, object complement SVOA: complex-transitive: You can put the dish on the table. subject, verb, object ...
In linguistic typology, tripartite alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the main argument ('subject') of an intransitive verb, the agent argument ('subject') of a transitive verb, and the patient argument ('direct object') of a transitive verb are each treated distinctly in the grammatical system of a language. [1]