TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE

Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | 1998 | 700+ words | Copyright

TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE. A transitive VERB (enjoy, make, want) is followed by an OBJECT (We enjoyed the trip; They make toys; He's making progress), or is preceded by its object, in such questions as What do you want? Such verbs are not normally found in the forms *We enjoyed, *They make/He's making, *Do you want? In this, they contrast with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects: They shouted; He's fallen down; She hurried home. Many verbs can, however, be both transitive and intransitive: He is playing (football); She hurried (the children) home; He ran (a good race). Some grammarians divide transitive verbs into: monotransitive verbs, which take one object (She ate the apple); ditransitive verbs, which take two objects (Give a dog a bad name); complex transitive verbs, which take an object and a complement (Paint the town red).

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TOM McARTHUR. "TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

TOM McARTHUR. "TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-TRANSITIVEANDINTRANSITIVE.html

TOM McARTHUR. "TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE." Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. 1998. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-TRANSITIVEANDINTRANSITIVE.html

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